Of Royalty and Dragonlords
by Maltheniel
Summary: Merlin watches Amhar grow up . . . Arthur realizes he needs to apologize . . . Merlin and Arthur face fatherhood together . . . the knights deal with being alive . . . Gwen and Arthur grow together, etc. Oneshots set in the world of The Future of a King. (No slash)
1. Chapter 1: Merlin

**Chapter 1: The Legacy of a Father (Merlin)**

Merlin had always been defined by what his father was, and sometimes more accurately what he was not.

Ealdor had known him as Hunith's bastard child. There was a time when he wondered if anyone beyond his mother, Will, and Will's family knew his actual name, because everyone else just called him the bastard. In a village that small, he was the only child whose father had disappeared before his birth, and they never let him forget it.

Hunith never let him forget that they were wrong. She and her husband had never been married formally, she said, and he knew later that this was because the nearest priest was in the border town where the guards of Camelot were posted and Balinor could never have gone there. They hadn't made a public show of their marriage because Ealdor would never have really understood. But the only thing she told him about his father when he was a child was that one night Hunith and the man she loved had sworn to each other in a field under the stars that they were each other's and each other's alone before God as long as this life lasted.

Hunith never looked at another man, not even as the years grew long and she raised the child the village claimed was a bastard alone. Merlin was to discover, years later, that Balinor never looked at any other woman, either.

They may never have been recorded as married, but they kept their vows to the end of their days.

Merlin never let himself take the definition of his father Ealdor gave him too seriously. He knew they were wrong.

* * *

When he discovered his father was a dragonlord, it did change his definition of himself. There were days when he wondered wearily just how many freaks of magic could be crowded into one tired man who had never really wanted to keep secrets at all, but most days he was proud to carry his father's legacy, even if he could never remember how it came to him without a dull, aching throb in his chest.

It was one more layer in the layers of lies and secrets that lay between Arthur and him, secrets he was too afraid to ever pull back, and he thought of his dragonlord powers that way on the days he was tired and no longer believed things could go right.

Most days, though, he was proud to carry his father's legacy. Proud to be a dragonlord. Proud to carry the banner high, to carry it on even if all the others had been slain, to carry this last bit of his father with him as long as he lived. He was proud to be defined by his father's legacy of magic.

* * *

The night Amhar was born, Merlin stared down at him and knew he would be defined all his life by who his father had been and even more by what he was now not. Namely, alive.

They all looked at him as Arthur's legacy, as the one last remnant of Arthur carried on, like the last spark of the dragonlord magic in Merlin. Merlin looked at him that way; Gwen did; and so did Leon and Percival and Gaius. The whole kingdom saw in Amhar the child of his father, the heir who would one day inherit his father's throne and legacy and realm. Of course it was all a thousand times worse than it would normally have been because Arthur was dead.

Merlin still couldn't think that without his throat becoming dry and choked and his chest feeling like a warhorse was sitting on it.

There was a night, though, when he was holding Amhar and rocking him to soothe his sobs so Gwen could sleep, when he looked down at the little child in his arms with Arthur's eyes and a fuzz of dark hair over his head and realized that the only thing the babe would understand was that he was fatherless.

He would grow up the way Merlin had, without a father to play with him, to teach him and train him and tell him he was proud of him. And Merlin didn't wish that life on anyone.

He couldn't be Amhar's father, because that role was and always would be Arthur's. But – but maybe he could be Amhar's Gaius. Gaius had, after all, been the closest thing Merlin had had to a father – never taking that place, exactly, but mentoring and caring about him and loving him. He could do that for Amhar at least.

That night, he stopped thinking of Amhar as only Arthur's last legacy to the world and started seeing him as a little boy helplessly defined by the way everyone thought of him as that.

* * *

Merlin's way of going about being a mentor to Amhar was by doing things for him he wished he had had a father to do.

When Amhar was a baby, all Merlin did was help Gwen. Gwen needed the help, of course – she couldn't quite care for a baby around the clock and be a queen and try to find closure over Arthur all at the same time – and Merlin was always there, carrying the baby, keeping an eye on him, watching him for her. He had his own work, of course, but if Gwen could go everywhere with a baby on her hip, so could he when she needed a break.

And then Amhar started growing out of the stage where he could just be carried everywhere and cooed over and started growing into a little boy. So Merlin walked with him when Gwen couldn't and watched the knights spar with him even if it was a long time before he could hear sword on shield and not think instantly of Arthur and battles and Camlann. He played with Amhar and tossed a ball back and forth with him and told him he was proud of him.

Merlin wondered later when he was older and wiser how he had ever thought he was a mentor instead of a father. He was glad the thought had never occurred to him when he would have been young and stupid enough to be worried about it.

* * *

"May I come watch you?" Amhar asked eagerly, bouncing on the balls of his feet.

Merlin was about to teach his first group of students a lesson in magic, and Amhar's bright, chirping voice broke him out of debating whether he should teach them how to make flames in their hands or on candles first. He turned to look at the young prince.

"You don't have magic, do you?" he blurted out.

Once that would have been the most terribly unsafe question he could have asked, and he would have said it only behind locked doors – or more likely he would have spied until he knew instead of asking. Now the only thing he did after saying it outright in the middle of the hallway was glance instinctively both ways to see who might have heard.

The fact that a couple of guards marching past at the far end of the corridor might have heard was somehow not terrifying anymore.

Amhar shook his head vigorously. "'Course I don't have magic!" he said, as if Merlin was stupid and should have known that. "But I want to see you teach it. It's exciting, Uncle Merlin!"

Merlin swallowed back the instinctive fear at letting someone who was not a magic user and thus not bound to keep the secret to save their life in on the lesson – Amhar was _four_ , for heaven's sake, and it wasn't like it mattered now that magic was legal anyway. But for a moment he looked into the clear blue of the eyes Amhar inherited from his father, and the family inheritance flowed back to him. Uther decrying magic as evil and to be exterminated – Arthur, leaning against the window – _"I had forgotten magic was evil. Thank you for reminding me" –_ Perhaps it would be good to have Arthur's son listen in – perhaps he will never form the irrational prejudice that comes from not knowing that magic can be good, can be _beautiful_ , and Merlin can never, never show him that now –

Merlin shook himself sharply from his thoughts, horrified. Amhar was not his father or grandfather, and he didn't deserve to be judged by their legacy with magic, nor by Merlin's still instinctive fears wrapped and layered in with his memories of them. Amhar was a four-year-old boy who was curious, and there was no harm in letting him see more of the magic he adored.

Luckily, also because he was four, he didn't realize how long Merlin had taken to answer. Merlin swallowed hard.

"Of course you can come!" he said cheerfully, and reached for Amhar's hand to lead him to his chambers.

But there was still something sick in his stomach that he had come so close to judging what Amhar was asking on the basis of his ancestry, and he made a decision that he won't do that again in the future.

That day was probably the last he viewed Amhar on the basis of his father's legacy.

Oh, of course he could never look at Amhar's eyes without thinking for a split second of Arthur's – and neither, he knew, could Gwen – and of course he never lost the sense that he was standing in for his best friend, but Amhar was just a boy. He deserved someone to stand in for his father. He deserved to make a legacy of his own.

* * *

Amhar knew his legacy, of course – Merlin and Gwen had told him about his father over and over again – so he had never thought of Merlin as fulfilling that role. Merlin thought that was a good thing the day Amhar cornered him in the hall and told him he was afraid of seeing his father, told him that he never wanted things to change between the two of them.

He had never realized just how much Amhar had come to see him as a father.

He had also never realized just how much he saw Amhar as a son.

He had certainly failed at being a Gaius – although given that there were days he came very close to thinking of Gaius as a father, given that Amhar called Gaius Grandfather, maybe he had succeeded too well instead.

He loved the prince – always had and always would, of course, but he realized that evening as he walked slowly back to his chambers that in doing all the things he wished a father had done for him with Amhar, he had in some strange way almost become Amhar's father. The thought terrified him, because that was never what he had set out to do, so it was a good thing Arthur was coming back soon. He was Amhar's proper father; he could take over that role then.

He tried to ignore the throb of loss, old and familiar, that rose deep within him when he thought about giving Amhar away.

* * *

Then Arthur came back, and everything was wonderful and painful and confusing, but he did notice that Amhar still seemed to bring the deepest questions he didn't want to trouble his mother with to Merlin. Arthur was taking his role as father up readily, which was good, and Amhar basked and expanded in the glory of having his real father care for him. But he still seemed to need Merlin, and Merlin was more than glad to be needed.

And then came the day of the dragon flights.

Amhar flew with Arthur, and it was very much well worth the small pinprick of giving up that activity that had always been Merlin's and Amhar's and theirs alone to see Arthur on the back of a dragon, and to see Arthur doing what his son loved most with him. The day got even better when Arthur came back complaining about Aithusa's sense of humor and adventure, along with a very excited and satisfied son and a smug dragon.

Merlin got to take Freya flying with him after that, like he'd promised her, and that was more than enough to make him forget everything else for a while. He'd never in his wildest dreams thought he'd have Freya back, much less get to show her his world, the kingdom he loved and protected, from his favorite vantage point on dragon-back.

He was still thinking about Freya, still alight with the warmth of her love, when Amhar caught up with him in the hallway. "What is it, Dragon?" he asked lightly.

Amhar was uncharacteristically hesitant, staring at his shoes. "Take me for a dragon flight?" he whispered.

Something throbbed deep in Merlin, but he only protested, "You've already had one with your father, and an exciting one if Arthur is to be believed."

"But it wasn't with you," Amhar protested, and something deep within Merlin broke and healed all at once.

He had never meant to steal Arthur's son, to be a father to him, but he didn't – couldn't – regret it. And knowing that the boy he had loved and cared for as his own all these years still wanted him warmed him inexplicably in a way nothing else could.

He put his hand on Amhar's shoulder as he had a thousand times before since Amhar outgrew having his hand held. "Then we'll take a quick turn around the castle before supper," he said, turning back to the courtyard and hiding just how suddenly _happy_ he was behind a normal tone of voice.

He didn't think Aithusa would mind a third flight. By the deeply satisfied aura she gave him when they reached the courtyard where she already sat waiting for them, she was happy about it instead.

 _You and your hatchling,_ she said in his mind. _It is right that you ride me together._

Merlin could have protested the hatchling bit, but he knew Aithusa knew he wasn't really Amhar's father. He knew what she meant.

And he was too happy about it himself to protest to her.

* * *

They would always be defined by the fact that their fathers weren't there when they were young, Merlin and Amhar. That would never change.

But there was a world of difference between growing up being called a bastard, even if you knew it wasn't true, and growing up with a man who took you on dragon flights and loved you like a father – not even a mentor, but a father – would.

Merlin had grown into his father's other legacy, the heritage he passed down, over time. He was proud of being a dragonlord now, proud and not the least bit ashamed.

Someday Amhar would grow into the legacy and heritage of the kingdom too. He would be blessed to have both a king and a queen, a father and mother, to teach him how to live it.

But somewhere in the shadows, he would have a Merlin too.

* * *

A/N: Since I survived a very busy semester at college, here is finally the series of one-shots from my Future-of-a-King-verse that I promised! These stories probably won't make much sense unless you've read that one. If anyone is curious, the conversations referenced here about Amhar's fears about his father's return and about the dragon flights are in chapters 8 and 14 of Future of a King, respectively. Anyhow, hope you enjoyed this story, and I'll be back with more from this world before too long.


	2. Chapter 2: Arthur

**Chapter 2: Guess I Was Wrong (Arthur)**

When Arthur came back to his room, the upcoming confrontation with the Saxons at the forefront of his mind, the last thing he expected to find was all his armor spread out on his table, cleaned and polished perfectly, and Merlin standing by it, saying almost nervously, "I think you'll find that's everything, sire."

"Impressive, very impressive," Arthur said reflexively. "More like it, not from you, anyway," he added.

Merlin huffed a brief laugh. "Thank you, sire," he said.

Something was strange here. Merlin wasn't as bad a servant as Arthur liked to claim he was, but preparing all Arthur's gear far ahead of time wasn't usual for him, and neither was his nervous air. Perhaps Arthur was just on edge with the sense of battle hanging over his head, but something didn't seem right. Following their usual habit of bantering with each other he tried to figure out what it was.

"So, what are you after?" he asked, walking across his room to find the map of Camlann he'd originally come to his room for.

"After?" Merlin returned, sounding baffled.

"Come on, Merlin, you're the worst servant in the history of the world, and now this," Arthur retorted quickly. "Is it money?" He ignored Merlin's hushed, "No," as he finished, "No, it can't be that; you've already won all of mine." He snatched up the map he was in search of and spun to go back to Merlin. "Time off," he continued musing aloud, continuing down the usual checklist of why a servant would be so helpful. He already knew Merlin's reason wouldn't be on that list – he wasn't a usual servant at all – but maybe this would get Merlin to admit the real reason.

"Arthur," Merlin began, but Arthur ignored him again. "No, it can't be that either," he added rather teasingly, as he unrolled the map; "you don't really do anything."

"I just wanted to make sure you had all you needed for your journey to Camlann, the days ahead," Merlin told him, but his voice was heavier than usual, as though he was unhappy about something.

"Thank you," Arthur returned, frowning, as he tried to work out what had sounded so wrong in that sentence. A moment later it hit him. "Merlin, what do you mean _my_ journey?" he demanded quickly.

Merlin finally turned to face him. "I'm afraid I won't be coming with you, not this time," he said, and Arthur felt as though his world had come crashing down. Merlin had always, _always_ been by his side, for years now, no matter how dangerous the task or difficult the journey. He had taken for granted that whatever happened at Camlann Merlin would be there by his side to meet it with him. Apparently Arthur had been wrong, and the bite of loss and betrayal that he had felt so often by now – but never by Merlin's hand – stung again.

Merlin was blathering on with excuses as Arthur tried to make sense of the world again. "I'm sorry," he was saying. "I have an urgent errand to run for Gaius, vital supplies that I can't obtain here."

"Vital supplies," Arthur echoed numbly, knowing Merlin wasn't telling him the truth, from the sheer vagueness of that term if nothing else.

"Yes," Merlin answered quickly. "Is that –"

"No, no," Arthur cut him off quickly, not wanting to hear anything else. He looked down, unable to face Merlin just then. "It's fine," he said, surprising himself with how level his voice came out. He glanced back at Merlin, who was still staring at him. "It's fine," he repeated, looking away. "I understand."

He'd never understood anything less in his life.

"Arthur –" Merlin began again, and of course he knew Arthur well enough by now to know he was upset. Apparently not enough to know how much Arthur wanted him by his side in this one last battle, though.

Arthur was fully aware in that moment that this could very well be the last time he spoke to Merlin. He was torn between being honest enough to let Merlin know for once what he had meant to him over all these years and an angry urge to make Merlin as miserable about this desertion, this cowardly act he was carrying out, as Arthur himself was.

"You know, Merlin," he began, not knowing himself where he intended to go with this, "all those jokes about you being a coward – I never really meant any of them."

He glanced up, saw the light dawning in Merlin's eyes at the unexpected and unusual compliment. "I always thought you were the bravest man I ever met," he added honestly.

Merlin was staring at him, eyes wide with hope as he took that in. And Arthur should have left it there, but his pettiness won out suddenly, and he added, "Guess I was wrong."

Crumpling the map in his hands, he spun and walked away. He had just paid Merlin the highest compliment of their friendship and then torn it away from him. Somehow he couldn't bear to watch the light die from Merlin's eyes as the truth sank in that Arthur really believed he was a coward.

* * *

The best and worst thing about being in Avalon was the display of the current events in Camelot usually flung on the underside of the lake's surface overhead. Freya did it, of course, even in the early days when Arthur almost never saw her.

To begin with, he was wary about the obvious use of magic involved, even as he longed fiercely to be able to see Gwen again, to know Merlin would recover and Camelot would survive even in his absence. Then he realized that his best friend had magic, his beloved wife was thinking of freeing magic, and the fact that he was here waiting to go back to the world in this strange lake instead of moving on to the afterlife was due to magic. He was absolutely surrounded by magic, and there was nothing he could do about it. In which case, he might as well make use of the magical display overhead to follow the lives of those he could no longer be with, at least for a time.

Once he realized Gwen was pregnant, not even the most potent fear of magic could have dragged him away from wanting to know what became of his son.

* * *

As Gwen worked toward making magic legal in Camelot, Arthur began to realize something about Merlin that worried him. For some reason Merlin believed he was a coward.

"Did Arthur know?" Leon asked, after he had been let in on the secret.

Merlin ducked his head and shook it slowly. "Not until the very end," he answered quietly. "I was a coward."

"No, you weren't," Arthur said indignantly to the swirling surface of the lake. By this time he had mostly gotten over not being let in on the secret earlier, especially after conversing with the knights here with him and realizing that only Lancelot had known before him.

Well, Freya very well might have known too. Arthur hadn't really had a chance to talk to her much.

When magic finally became legal, there were almost as many different reactions as there were people in Camelot. Almost no one was indifferent. Many were overjoyed; many were fearful; some were highly skeptical that a new Purge wouldn't be needed in a few years, and some thought the legalization of magic should have been done years ago. There were almost as many different reactions to the revelation that Merlin had been a warlock all these years and now held the official position of Court Sorcerer, although shock was the common factor between all the different reactions.

The one Arthur hadn't expected, though, was the reaction that thought Merlin should have made who he was clear much sooner and tried to make magic legal years ago. Coward, was what these people whispered under their breath.

"The situation was more complicated than that," Arthur hissed at them. Freya had flicked the images away from Camelot once to show the reaction of a druid camp to the news that they no longer had to live in fear. The rejoicing in that camp, half-hysterical, half-tentative, had made Arthur wish suddenly that he had made magic legal during his reign. He didn't blame the fact that he hadn't on Merlin, though, and he was astonished at how many magic users seemed to subtly resent Merlin for the slow return of magic.

What stunned him further was that Merlin seemed to agree with them. He never made any effort to refute what they said, and Arthur knew the look in Merlin's eye, knew the way he hunched his shoulders whenever those whispers met his ears. For some strange reason he agreed with them.

Arthur was aware by this time that fear had probably played a fairly large role in why Merlin had never told him the truth until the end, first fear for his life and then fear of losing Arthur's trust and friendship. That didn't mean his friend, who had followed him into so many dangerous places, who had drunk poison for him, who had saved his life a thousand times over, was a coward.

There was a night when Merlin slipped back to his room, utterly exhausted after a day of meeting with a group of druids who had been almost completely open about blaming Merlin for the state of fear they had lived in for the past ten years at least. Arthur sat alone on a rock, watching Merlin with an aching heart as he sat down on the edge of his bed and buried his face in his hands. "Coward," the warlock whispered to the silent night. "Coward." His lips formed more words, words Arthur couldn't make out.

"Why does he believe it?" Arthur asked the night, anguished by his friend's suffering and his own utter helplessness to do anything about it.

He didn't in the least expect a reply, but a feminine voice suddenly said quite near him, "When you're told you are something often enough, you start to believe it."

Arthur jumped and turned. Freya was sitting perched on a rock a few yards from him, hands clasped around her knees, staring pensively at Merlin's still shape. She showed no sign of noting Arthur's surprise.

"Who told him he was a coward?" Arthur stammered, unable to think of a less inane answer at that moment. Freya hardly ever interacted with him, much less alone without the buffer of the other knights.

"You did, of course," was her unexpected reply. "Over and over again." She didn't even turn to look at him.

"I never meant those comments," Arthur retorted angrily. "He knew I was only joking with him. He was the bravest man I ever knew."

"And yet the one time you told him that, you took it back moments later," Freya answered implacably.

Arthur stared at her for a moment, before the memory came back to him. _I always thought you were the bravest man I ever knew . . ._ the bright hope in Merlin's eyes . . . _guess I was wrong._

"I _was_ wrong," he said aloud, angry with himself now. He could see it suddenly, Merlin memorizing that moment as one of the last things Arthur had ever said to him, adding it to all the jokes over the years and all the people who whispered about cowardice now, and internalizing it as how he thought of himself. Arthur wished with sudden furious helplessness that he had never had a temper, certainly that he had not turned it on Merlin in that moment.

"And now I can never make it right," he burst out bitterly.

"You will see Merlin again," Freya told him, the hint of comfort in her voice as unexpected as her answer. "Say what you mean then, Arthur Pendragon."

And with that she slipped off her rock and vanished into the night.

* * *

It was an hour before dawn on the day when Arthur was due to lead his second battle against the Saxons. This time, Merlin was by his side as they prepared; his armor wasn't spread out across a table, polished, but being put on him by hands that had learned their task well by years of practice. Arthur didn't know if Merlin was remembering that other day before the last battle, but it was on Arthur's mind. Once again, there was no guarantee that he or Merlin would live to see another dawn, and this time he was determined that Merlin would know that he was no coward before they went to face the battle.

Amhar was there too, watching them with curious eyes, perhaps the greatest difference between this time and the last. "You're very good at this, Uncle Merlin," he said, sounding awed, and Arthur remembered watching his son learning his first lessons in how to put on armor back in Avalon.

"A decade of practice," Merlin answered lightly, tugging a buckle tight.

For some reason, that brought back memories to Arthur of Merlin's early days as his servant, and he took advantage of not thinking about the Saxons for a moment as he lost himself in memory and chuckled. "You wouldn't be saying that if you could see the first few times he did it," he remarked to his son. "You were absolutely hopeless at helping me back then, Merlin."

"I'd hardly ever seen anyone wearing armor, much less tried to help anyone into it," Merlin protested. "If you knew how little I actually knew about anything when I first started serving you, you might give me a bit more credit."

He said it cheerfully, but the truth of his words made Arthur feel guilty suddenly. He had never taken into account when Merlin was first learning to be his servant how little the country boy would know about the endless duties Arthur expected of him. He wished he'd not been such an insulated prat back in those days. "How did you figure out the armor?" he asked, suddenly curious. "I seem to remember you knowing how to help me by the time I faced Valiant." And that had been early on in their association together.

It was Merlin's turn to chuckle. "I asked Gwen for help," he admitted, turning to put on his own chain mail. "We were friends, and she was the blacksmith's daughter. She knew everything there was to know about armor."

"Helpful," Arthur commented, helping Merlin fasten on his plate metal. He was taken back suddenly to the first day he had helped Merlin into armor, the day they had fought for Ealdor together, equals for perhaps the first time. Merlin had fought fearlessly for his hometown then, as he had faced every other challenge they had met bravely by Arthur's side, as they would face the Saxons today.

Arthur turned suddenly to Merlin and put his hand on his shoulder, making Merlin look at him.

"I just wanted to say," he began awkwardly, then cleared his throat and added decidedly, "Merlin, you're the bravest man I've ever known."

He had finally said it, said the truth he had thought so often in Avalon. Merlin's eyes widened as they met his, and by the look on his face Arthur knew Merlin expected him to take it back again. Somehow that hurt worse than anything else. He met Merlin's eyes steadily, sincerely, and shook his shoulder a bit for emphasis. He meant it from the depth of his heart this time.

Merlin suddenly smiled, his wide, full, bright smile, nodded, and stepped back. "Thank you, Arthur," he said quietly.

Arthur nodded back. For now, Merlin believed him; it was a beginning. But if he had really been the first one to make Merlin believe he was a coward, as Freya hinted, it was high time he let Merlin know how much of a hero he really was.

First, though, they had to defeat the Saxons. Arthur turned and strode from the tent, Merlin on his heels. This time, they would face them together.

* * *

Arthur enjoyed the journey home to Camelot from the battle. He had always enjoyed the outdoors and the wild, and coming back from a victory with his family and closest friends around him, newly King of Albion, finally getting Merlin to tell him the truth of years gone by, was the best experience of the wild there was.

He had not forgotten his determination to make sure Merlin knew he was brave, either, or his delight in teasing his friend. As he settled down between Gwen and Amhar to eat supper around the campfire, surrounded by the knights of the Original Round Table, he glanced to Merlin, sitting beside Amhar, and asked, "Is the bravest man present going to continue his story?"

There was a brief silence before Merlin glanced at him incredulously, obviously not having realized the question was directed at him for a moment. "I'm hardly the bravest man here," he objected, half-laughing.

"Doesn't mean you're not brave," Gwaine retorted cheerfully; he had been as disturbed by Merlin's estimation of his bravery as Arthur had been in Avalon. "Come on, mate; you're surrounded by knights. We're meant to be the bravest men in Camelot!"

There was laughter, and Arthur could have let it rest at that. The old Arthur certainly would have.

 _Say what you mean, Arthur Pendragon._

He had spent years in the lake of Avalon wishing he could say and unsay many things. He had determined long ago that his pride was worth nothing against those he loved knowing what he really meant.

"I meant what I said," he insisted quietly, staring at Merlin until the warlock met his eyes. "Not many men could have spent years under the shadow of death, risking their lives over and over again to save the life of a completely oblivious prince and being rewarded by being called a coward. You, Merlin, have more courage than anyone else I've ever met."

The group was silent for a long moment, and the look on Merlin's face echoed the look he'd worn years ago when Arthur had first told him he was the bravest man he had ever met. This time, Arthur was not going to dash that hope to pieces.

"I agree," Amhar piped up suddenly, cutting through the tension. "Uncle Merlin's the bravest man ever. Now are you going to finish the story? You haven't gotten to the part where Gaius licks the gold yet!"

Merlin gave a short laugh, slightly choked, and everyone politely ignored the sheen of tears in his eyes as he picked up the thread of the story again.

It was a start, Arthur thought contentedly as he ate his stew and laughed at the goblin's antics of long ago. He'd just have to find a way to work _bravest man_ into a nickname for Merlin.

It didn't quite have the ring of idiot, but it was much nearer the truth. And after all these years, he owed Merlin that.

* * *

A/N: I'm so very sorry I haven't gotten this chapter up sooner, or responded to all your lovely comments - I appreciated all of them so much! Christmas break has been very busy for me, so I haven't had much time to write. I will try to get one more chapter added to this before I go back to college, though.

It was the idea for this chapter that made me first realize I wanted to add some one-shots from different perspectives to my tale of Amhar; the scene where Arthur tells Merlin he's the bravest man he knows is from chapter 12 of Future of a King, but obviously Amhar doesn't realize the significance of the moment! So here is Arthur's perspective at last.


	3. Chapter 3: Merlin and Arthur

**Chapter 3: To Be a Father (Merlin and Arthur)**

When Arthur realized he was going to become a father to a second child, he panicked. Merlin was amused.

"What if I do something wrong?" he asked frantically as he and Merlin walked along the corridor after Arthur and Gwen made the official announcement to the court. "What if I'm such a terrible king the child doesn't want to be royalty at all? What if I'm such a terrible father it disowns me when it's grown up? Merlin!" he exclaimed, turning to grab his friend's shoulders, "what if it's a _girl_? I don't know anything about dresses or – or hair or anything!"

Laughing, Merlin ducked out of his friend's grip. "Arthur," he protested, "you're the greatest king Camelot has ever seen." (He had stopped saying, "You're the greatest king Albion has ever seen" by this time, because Arthur had kept answering that with, "I'm the only one it's ever seen – therefore by default I'm the greatest. That doesn't exactly inspire confidence, _Mer_ lin.") "And why would you be anything but a wonderful father?"

Arthur stepped to the edge of the balcony and looked down at the courtyard of the castle. "My father wasn't exactly a shining example," he said quietly. "I don't have a perfect copy to follow."

Merlin stilled, further protests dying on his lips. He stepped forward to lean against the railing beside Arthur, who went on softly, "I know he loved us; I've never doubted that. But being king – his interpretation of being king – always came before us."

"For one thing," Merlin answered, soft and sincere as Arthur was being, "you don't treat the kingship the same way he did. You treat it as something you can do for your people, not something they owe you."

"Yes, and I could always be prioritizing some distant crisis in a far corner of one of the nine countries I'm responsible for over my children and riding off to deal with it," Arthur retorted pensively.

"Then don't," Merlin said simply, and over Arthur's half-teasing, half-scoffing repetition of the phrase, he added quickly, "Arthur, you see what the dangers are – you've _lived_ what the dangers are. Just do what you can to avoid them; do what you would have wanted Uther to do when you were a child. Don't – don't just worry, Arthur," he said, stumbling over his sincerity, " _do_ what you know your kids would want. You'll be fine."

Arthur stared at Merlin for a long moment. "You and your advice, Merlin," he said then, but though he was clearly trying for teasing, his words came out sincere.

"Well, there has to be some reason you decided I could stay on as Court Sorcerer," Merlin said flippantly, turning back to the courtyard.

"Yes, and it obviously wasn't that you have more magic in your little finger than most sorcerers have in a lifetime," Arthur retorted lightly.

Merlin chuckled, trying not to let it sound hysterical. Arthur joking about his magic had been part of his wildest dreams for so long that to hear it aloud still had a tendency to overawe him with the fact that he had been given a second chance.

"What if it is a girl, though?" Arthur asked after a moment, and though neither of them said the name, Merlin knew they were both thinking of Morgana.

He stared down into the courtyard, feeling the old shame of wishing he had overcome his fear to be there for her. "Listen to her," he said softly, and found nothing else to say on that topic. "And you'll have Gwen," he added more lightly.

"And I'll have Gwen," Arthur echoed, and his face lit up with the smile he kept reserved for only Gwen. It made Merlin think of Freya nowadays, and he wondered suddenly, and not without a feeling of panic, how long it would be before he might become a father.

"Anyhow," he added after a moment, "it's not like this is your first child. I know you weren't here when Amhar was born," he added quickly, "but you've stepped into being his father naturally since you came back."

"I've just been imitating you," Arthur said – honestly but with a definite twinkle in his eye.

"Me!" Merlin squawked, but knowing how much Amhar saw him as a father, he wasn't as shocked as he would once have been.

"So any criticisms you have on my fathering on that head will only be reflections on you," Arthur went on, and now he really was laughing at Merlin.

Merlin shook his head. "Then you've been watching excellent parenting all those years in the lake," he said, pretending arrogance. "You should know everything about how to do it."

"I thought I was supposed to be the arrogant one," Arthur protested, but he was lighthearted now and seemed to be over his fears of fatherhood.

Merlin didn't doubt he and Gwen would have to deal with one or two more panic attacks, especially once the baby was born and Arthur realized how small and precious its weight in his arms was, but at least this one was solved. He shoved Arthur's shoulder and darted down toward the courtyard before he could be shoved back, the ridiculous train of his court robe flapping behind him as he went to change it.

* * *

When Merlin realized he was going to become a father, he panicked. Arthur was amused.

"I don't know how to be a father!" he exclaimed, pacing up and down in his quarters. Arthur, who had found by Freya and summarily sent to "talk sense into my husband," sat smirking in a chair and waited for him to calm down. "I only bring magic back to a land after failing to do so for years without count, I fail to protect my king so badly he needs a second life to fulfill his destiny, I ruin half the lives I touch – you don't get second tries at fatherhood, Arthur. What if I completely mess up with my first child?" He said all this in a tremendous rush.

"I'd say you already had your first child in Amhar," Arthur answered, "and you did a brilliant job with him." He would never cease to be grateful that Merlin had stepped into the role he could not provide for his young son. It did create an interesting state of affairs now, where Amhar trusted and loved Merlin at least as well as Arthur, but Arthur wouldn't have taken Merlin's support away from a young Amhar and told him to wait for his father's return for anything.

"I just tried to give Amhar what I never had as a child," Merlin retorted. "I wasn't even trying to be a father."

"If you are that good of a father without even trying, I don't see why you'd be worried about the quality of your fatherhood when you are trying," Arthur retorted, but the reality of that first phrase squeezed his chest. When he and Merlin had talked about Balinor being Merlin's father on the trip back from the second battle with the Saxons, it had been in the context of dragonlords, not in the context of the absence his exile had left in Merlin's life.

Merlin swallowed hard and ran both hands through his hair. "I utterly failed Aithusa," he answered.

Arthur blinked at the non sequitur. "I don't see what that has to do –" he began, before Merlin spun on him and cut him off.

"Don't you?" he asked sharply. "I was her dragonlord – I called her from her shell and told her it was safe for her to come forth and live. Instead she got captured and tortured by the Sarrum when she should have been able to spend those years by my side, learning how to interact with humans and growing into a strong and healthy dragon. Morgana cared for her more than I ever did. It took me years to earn her trust again later, and when she realized she forged the sword that killed you – she'll never quite forgive herself for that. All because I –" He swallowed again and turned away.

"You take too much blame on yourself," Arthur shot back, sharp because he was cut to the quick with the realization of how much blame he bore in the situation too. "If it hadn't been for the ban on magic, you would have brought her to the castle to grow up. You saved her egg and gave her the chance to live, Merlin. More than that was beyond you at the time."

"Then shouldn't I have waited until it was safe to call her forth?" Merlin shot back.

Arthur shook his head. "We can argue about the mistakes we made back then and what we should have done differently all day," he said – which was a fact he knew from experience. "The point now isn't what either of us should or shouldn't have done. The point is that you wanted to do the best for Aithusa, and when you got the chance you've become a wonderful dragonlord to her. Do you think she'd be the happy dragon she is today without you?"

Merlin shook his head and dropped into a chair opposite, holding his head in his hands. For a long moment neither of them said anything; then Merlin began slowly, staring at the floor, "I hardly knew what it meant to be a dragonlord back then; Kilgarrah had to coach me through everything."

Arthur wanted to cut in with a triumphant, "See!" but Merlin was going on. "My father should have taught me, but he was never there. At least you knew what not to be from Uther, and a little bit of what you should be. I – I never had any father at all." He glanced up at Arthur, eyes dark with old pain. "I tried to give Amhar what I didn't have, so he wouldn't feel the loss the same way I did. That feels like too little to give my own children as a father."

It was Arthur's turn to glance away, feeling the weight of Merlin's pain and the age-old guilt that it was his father who had deprived Merlin of the chance to know his father. But as he had pointed out to Merlin, this was not a time for them to get stuck in old guilt.

Merlin's quiet voice cut through his thoughts. "I never even thought I'd be a father at all," he added wonderingly.

Arthur pounced on that, since it was his job to make his friend feel better now. "That's a good thing, at least," he said a bit awkwardly. "At least you have that chance."

"It is," Merlin agreed, but his tone was half-hearted at best.

"And you have been an excellent father to Amhar, and to Aithusa when you were given the chance," Arthur pressed on. "If you think it takes you two tries to get something right – which it really doesn't, except when it came to all your chores – you've already had your tries and done well with them. You might be a more attentive father than otherwise, knowing – well, what you do." He still wasn't good with comforting speeches, and felt very awkward indeed.

"Attentive, or smothering," Merlin said with a little chuckle, but at least he looked less despairing. "And at least the fact that my child will almost certainly have magic isn't a bad thing now." He still looked awed as he said it, and Arthur had to agree. He was glad Merlin's child would never know the fear of magic Merlin and Freya must have lived with for so long, and he couldn't even imagine how much more thankful they must be.

"And you do have examples," Arthur said teasingly. "Leon, and Percival, for instance. Even me!"

"You're hardly a stellar example," Merlin shot back. "I distinctly remember a conversation where you told me – hmm, what was it? That you had no idea how to be a father either?"

"I never said that!" Arthur retorted swiftly. "I expressed my concerns in a much more dignified way." Merlin snorted at that, but they were both grinning again, so Arthur counted this a success. He expected Merlin would still worry – he could never seem to stop doing that – but Freya would be able to smooth over some of his worries, and Arthur was sure she would send him to Merlin if she ever thought Merlin needed him again.

"And look at me now!" he added, standing up. "I have a daughter, and I'm not terrified of being her father every day now."

Merlin glanced up at him and looked unexpectedly thoughtful as he rose; Arthur guessed he was thinking something along the lines of the fact that even the most terrified could actually be decent fathers, but all he said was, "At least you'll never admit it to me."

Arthur chuckled and moved toward the door; the conversation was making him want to go cuddle Cerelia again. Behind him, Merlin suddenly exclaimed, "Wait! What if my baby is a girl?"

"Then you get to deal with dresses, and hair, and all of that when she grows up," Arthur responded, laughing. "But you'll have Freya."

He looked back to see Merlin's face softening into a look he'd never seen it wear for any other topic. "Yes," he said softly, smiling. "I'll have Freya."

* * *

A/N: I'm headed back to college in a few days, so this will unfortunately be the last chapter for now. I have (lots) more ideas for one-shots, though, so look for me again, probably in May - more will be showing up then, and from plenty of different viewpoints! Thank you again so much to everyone who welcomed me back when I started this collection; I appreciate everyone who reads this a lot!


	4. Chapter 4: Lancelot and Gwaine

**Chapter 4: Restored to Life (Lancelot and Gwaine)**

It was sometime after Merlin married Freya that Lancelot found himself wandering through the castle courtyard, feeling out of spirits.

He'd been feeling out of place for some time, as a matter of fact, almost ever since the battle that had ushered Albion into existence, and as happy as he was for Merlin, the wedding hadn't particularly helped. He saw Gwaine come into the courtyard, which was otherwise empty of returned knights, and turned to leave; Gwaine had been trying to corner him for several days, and thus far Lancelot had managed to avoid him. He didn't want to have the conversation that he guessed Gwaine wanted to have with him.

This time, though, Gwaine caught up with him as they were about to leave the courtyard with a friendly jostle of their shoulders. "So, Sir Lancelot," he said cheerfully, "what's on your mind?"

He said it lightly enough that it sounded like an ordinary question, but it was exactly what Lancelot suspected Gwaine wanted to ask him, and exactly what he didn't want to answer.

"Sparring," he said, to avoid the subject. "Do you want to go a round with me?"

"Normally I'd be all for the idea," Gwaine answered, "but for once I think we need to have a conversation instead."

He pulled Lancelot out onto the walls, at a place where the guards were stationed sparsely and there was room to talk in private, and spun Lancelot by the shoulders to face him.

"So," Gwaine said, meeting Lancelot's eyes straight on, "what's going on?"

"I expected Merlin to be bothering me about this," Lancelot admitted, and then immediately wished he hadn't, since that sounded like he didn't think Gwaine would notice or talk to him about it.

Gwaine, being Gwaine, took not the least offence. "He asked me to bother it out of you," he said frankly, "since, let's face it, I'm the best of us at being annoying. How shall I go about this? I could sit here and stare at you til you crack, or I could sing drinking songs until you're so annoyed you tell me, or I could drag you down to the inn and get you drunk. On second thought let's not go with that one. By the time you're drunk enough to actually spill, you'll be so drunk you won't be able to listen to the invaluable advice I give afterwards."

Lancelot laughed in spite of himself.

"It's nothing of importance," he said after a moment, "and selfish as well. There's no reason to burden you with it."

"Self-absorbed and unimportant," Gwaine said cheerfully. "Sounds just like me. Spill."

But there was an echo of old pain in his hard eyes, and Lancelot was shaken out of his dour mood. "Gwaine," he said indignantly, "you're important, and you're far less self-absorbed than you like to think you lead people to believe. Don't think so little of yourself."

Gwaine's smile became smaller and more sincere. "You're a good friend, Lancelot," he said in a voice oddly lacking in any hint of mockery. "And now that you've stripped away my layers to give me sound advice, you owe it to me to let me do the same for you."

He was clearly in earnest, and by this point it would be far more conspicuous to try keeping his secrets. Lancelot sighed and spilled.

"I don't belong here," he said.

Clearly that wasn't enough, because Gwaine raised dark eyebrows and said nothing more.

"I should have died twice over," Lancelot told him. "If the Veil wasn't enough to kill me, I should most definitely have been dead after Morgana's scheme." That scheme was common knowledge now, along with almost all the other secrets of those years. "There's no reason I should be alive more than any of the knights who have died for any reason over the years, except that Freya managed to work some magic and give me a second chance. That's what she told me when I asked her what had happened – that this was my second chance."

"And you think you lived such an excellent life the first time around that you didn't need one," Gwaine surmised, sounding somewhere between admiring and skeptical.

" _No,"_ Lancelot retorted vehemently. Faces swam in his mind – faces of men he'd fought for the pleasure of those with power when his dream of being a knight had fallen to pieces around him, faces of men he'd wounded or killed. He'd never stopped regretting that. "No – for heaven's sake, Gwaine, I don't pretend to be perfect."

"Then what's your problem with a second chance?" Gwaine asked bluntly. "We've been given a gift, Lancelot – a chance to live our lives out, to be properly old when we die. Seems to me we should seize the day and live."

Lancelot spun away to look over the lower city. He knew Gwaine would have this attitude, which was why he didn't really want to have this conversation with him. "Of course that's how you think," he said, unusually bitter for him. "But not all of us can brush past the questions so easily. Malcolm, Alcott, Ridley - I can recall half a dozen good knights who fought by our side and died on some patrol or mission or quest. Why am I given the chance to live and not them? Strange magic isn't much of an answer."

"And yet it's been an answer for far more aspects of our lives than I even dreamed, given Merlin's stories and Freya's images," Gwaine answered, unusually thoughtful for him. "Freya says all of us who were there at the Round Table in the castle of the ancient kings that day are connected by magic and destiny. Do you regret swearing to serve Arthur there? As I recall you gave the most touching speech of any of us except Arthur."

"Of course not," Lancelot said indignantly. "I will never regret serving Arthur."

He sighed and leaned forward, bracing himself against the wall. "It's just, if we were called back I want something to be called back for," he said quietly. "And at first I thought there was – the Saxon invasion. Honestly I expected to die in that battle."

"I thought the same," Gwaine said, quietly.

Lancelot turned to stare at him. "You did?" He had not expected that.

"I thought that was probably all Freya could bring us back for," Gwaine answered simply. "You know that she was only supposed to be able to bring back Arthur. If I got a few extra days of life, a chance to meet Amhar, to reassure Merlin, to play a part in the battle so someone else didn't have to die, wasn't that worth it? But afterwards, when I realized that we were going to live anyway –" He spread his hands. "I'm not going to complain about more life."

Lancelot stared at him for a moment, then conceded the point with a nod. "I don't know who I am anymore, though," he said quietly. "For a time my only dream was to be a knight, but that was answered a long time ago. I was Merlin's confidant when it came to magic – but everyone knows now, and that's for the best. I was in love with Gwen at one time, but she's married to Arthur now, and I'd never begrudge them that. Merlin's married now and needs me less than ever. Percival has lived without me all these years and has his family too. I don't know who I am, Gwaine."

Gwaine shook his head and smiled, but it was a kind smile. "And now we get to it," he said. "I thought we would come to it at last – your overabundance of humility. A little bit is a good thing, but you think so little of yourself you don't see what you mean to people around you. Luckily I expected that one and I came prepared with evidence to combat it."

"Really," Lancelot said, trying to sound sarcastic more than interested and feeling he had failed entirely.

"Really," Gwaine returned. He pulled a wilted scrap of parchment from where it had been tucked in his belt with a flourish and waved it in Lancelot's face. "Let me read my reasons to you."

It was everything Lancelot could do not to laugh at that moment, but Gwaine gave him a severe glare and began reading anyway, elaborating as he went. "First, Merlin still looks to you as one of his closest friends," he began. "You're still the only one Merlin explains his schemes to without prompting, and he always trusts you're coming along on anything related to magic. He still asks the rest of us – you he assumes. For Merlin that's rare. Let me see – ah, yes. Arthur and Gwen trust your judgement, along with the rest of us Round Table knights, above and beyond anyone else. You really want to deprive them of a counsellor they trust when ruling is apparently so difficult anyway? And you're a knight," he added simply, lowering his paper and looking Lancelot in the eyes. "You're one of our fellowship, our brotherhood. The fact that knights die often doesn't make it any easier to bear, losing one of those close to us. This is really the first time that all of us have been together and happy, and you really want to mar it by going and dying for some melodramatic reason like not thinking you belong?"

Lancelot could hear the undertones, the way Gwaine was saying that Lancelot's friendship meant something to him, and had to swallow a lump in his throat.

"I wasn't planning on doing something melodramatic like dying," he protested. "Really, I wasn't. It – was just hard to think I belonged here."

Gwaine conceded the point with a tilt of his head and turned to look out over Camelot. "Besides," he added very quietly, "Merlin's lost enough people for several lifetimes. Isn't it only fair that he gets some of us back, against the natural order or not?"

Lancelot thought of Merlin's bright eyes when he had convinced Lancelot to ride a dragon with him to gather the countries for battle, of Arthur turning to him after battle or in council with a quick clap on the shoulder, of Gwen smiling in friendship when he made a good point, of the fellowship of the knights he'd enjoyed for so short a time before, of Gwaine's determination to see that he enjoyed the present, and smiled.

"Take Freya's second chance," Gwaine told him quietly. "Find a new girl to be happy with. Magic owes us a good turn or two by now."

Lancelot drew a deep breath and decided to shake off the past – the Lancelot of the lake, the Lancelot who had been forced to betray Gwen, the Lancelot who had done things he regretted, fighting to eat. A second chance in the present. He might as well take it.

"Might as well," he agreed, and was a bit surprised in spite of himself at the way Gwaine's shoulders relaxed in relief. The other knight straightened and clapped him on the shoulder warmly, and there was a depth of brotherhood in the hearty clap that Lancelot felt more deeply than ever, even after years under the lake.

They stood looking over the city they were sworn to protect with their lives for a few minutes before a page ducked out onto the wall. "Sirs," he said, "the king requests your presence at a meeting of the Round Table."

Gwaine shot Lancelot a significant look and a grin before turning to follow the page. "Duty calls," he said cheerfully.

Lancelot smiled and followed him.

When they ducked into the council chamber, where the Round Table stood and those who had sat around it in the castle of the ancient kings were gathering, Lancelot noticed Merlin's sharp eyes flick quickly between him and Gwaine, and smiled to himself. He walked around the table to talk to him, but Merlin spoke before he could.

"Did Gwaine talk to you?" he asked.

"Yes," Lancelot told him. "Second chances – they're worthwhile, aren't they?"

It was a rhetorical question, but Merlin glanced around the council chamber, full once more, and smiled a little. "Yes," he said, completely sincere, "they are."

And Lancelot knew in that moment that even if the only point to his being alive again was to be Merlin's friend, even if it was in a new way, that alone would be worth it.

"Alright, friends!" Arthur's voice cut through the chitchat. "Now that our delinquent knights have put in an appearance, let's get to business."

"Say," Merlin said as they moved toward the table, "do you want to take Aithusa to visit the druids of Gedney with me tomorrow? I'm overdue for a visit to them."

Someone nudged Lancelot sharply with his elbow, making Lancelot jump and look at him, but Gwaine merely raised significant eyebrows at him.

 _Merlin always trusts you're coming along on anything with magic._

Lancelot nodded back that he understood, then turned to Merlin, feeling something deep and right settle within him.

"Of course," he said. "When do we leave?"

* * *

Notes: Soooo I am a horrible writer and haven't added to this story in far too long. I blame college. But I was recently cross-posting this series to Ao3, and it reminded me how much I do love what I wrote and that I really want to finish writing some of the one-shot ideas I had. I've had snippets of this conversation floating around for a long time, but I finally got the motivation to sit down and fill it out. So basically, I'm sorry, and hopefully you like having a new chapter added? Fingers crossed, I'll finish this collection over this summer.


	5. Chapter 5: Percival

**Chapter 5: To Guard and Protect**

Percival had always been used to someone having his back.

It started when he was a child, when he was the oldest sibling and Brynne and Wyland would follow him everywhere he went. Naturally they trusted him to defend them the most, but if he stumbled his little sister and brother were there to pull him up. He boosted them up trees; they pulled him from a treacherous bog when he stumbled into it walking ahead of them. They trusted each other, and Percival took it for granted, not knowing things would ever change.

He didn't talk much, even then. It didn't matter. Brynne and Wyland knew him as well as they knew themselves; they understood.

* * *

The first blow fell in the destruction caused by the petty warring of two minor lords. Percival and Wyland were out hunting, and came home, cheerful and careless, to find their home burned and their parents and Brynne gone with it.

Percival took Wyland with him and did everything in his power to add strength to his height so he could keep his little brother safe. They learned swordfighting from whoever was willing to teach them so they would never be defenseless again. Percival did everything he could to shield the blows; Wyland watched his back.

* * *

It wasn't enough.

* * *

When Percival met Lancelot, it was too soon after Wyland's death for him to have grown used to fighting alone; as a matter of fact, the assumption he still made that his back would be guarded was dangerous, and he'd been staying out of battles as much as he could because as soon as he got used to fighting alone, the ghost of Wyland that he imagined guarding his back would be gone and he would be truly alone.

They met when Percival, traveling down the road by himself, ran across a small party who was being attacked by bandits – and one man in a chain-mail shirt trying to fight the bandits off.

He had no one to guard his back, and Percival had chain mail and a sword too. He stepped forward to help the man. They fell into step instinctively, watching each other's blind spots, and it was good.

That night, Percival dreamt of Wyland, and when he woke to a dark-haired man slumbering from exhaustion on his watch feet from him, he felt as if Wyland had given him permission to give Lancelot his place. Someone needed to watch this young man's back, after all.

Percival took Lancelot under his wing and knew he would do everything in his power to teach him he had a man who would watch his back, that he would do everything in his power to keep him from dying.

* * *

It wasn't that hard to teach Lancelot to trust him; Lancelot had a good heart and an open one and responded quickly to trust. He was also superb at watching Percival's back in any of the skirmishes they got into. They made a living guarding the roads from bandits and occasionally helping in other skirmishes. It was a lean life, but Percival refused to get involved in any petty squabbling between lords, and Lancelot refused to fight in mock battles, so they made do. There wasn't a lot of talking, but there was deep trust.

Percival never forgot Brynne and Wyland – of course he didn't. But he thought that they'd probably be most happy seeing him happy again.

* * *

Lancelot occasionally got letters from Merlin, whenever they stayed in one place long enough for him to send their location to Camelot, and he always read them aloud to Percival. Percival had never met Merlin, but he felt he knew him fairly well through the letters; Merlin's letters were detailed, full of magic and mischief and a prince that Merlin constantly complained about but was obviously utterly loyal to all the same.

"Do you have a problem with magic?" Lancelot had asked him, before he read Merlin's first letter. It was one of the few questions he had asked – he had learned early on that Percival didn't appreciate questions about his past.

"Some magic," Percival allowed. He'd seen the destruction it could wreak a few times on his travels.

"Do you think all sorcerers are evil, then?" Lancelot pressed. He looked more tense than he'd been since their earliest days together.

"Never," Percival said firmly. However poor they were, he and Wyland had never even thought of turning sorcerers into Camelot for the bounty on their heads.

They'd run into a sorcerer on the road one night, a thin, ragged fellow with hollows under his eyes but almost painfully friendly. There had been no use pretending he wasn't a sorcerer – he'd been lighting his fire with magic as they appeared. They had spent a pleasant night with him around the campfire, Wyland and the sorcerer exchanging stories, Percival content to listen.

They'd defended him from the bounty hunter on his tail the next day, given him time to get away.

That was when Wyland had died.

Percival had no problems with the idea of sorcerers.

Lancelot relaxed. "That's good then," he said, "because I have a friend who's a sorcerer." And he proceeded to read Merlin's letter.

At that time, neither Lancelot or Percival had ever thought they'd go back to Camelot, or see Merlin again, or Lancelot would probably have kept the secret to himself.

As it was, when they got a letter in Haldor, telling them that Morgana and Morgause had taken Camelot with an immortal army and asking them to come aid Arthur and a grand total of three warriers to retake it, Percival and Lancelot gave each other one long look – and then simultaneously started packing their things.

* * *

"Your enemies are my enemies," Percival told the king. He knew enough from Merlin's letters and what he saw in Arthur today to know that this was a king who would not let families become casualties in war just because they had a good garden to rob for food, that this was a king he could follow.

He didn't expect to be knighted for it, had never dreamed of being a knight, but it was an oddly noble ending to the unfocused beginning he and Wyland had made when they had decided to learn to fight, and he thought he would be honored to watch the backs of the men kneeling beside him.

* * *

Most of the knights knew what it was to trust one another, to know someone was fighting at your back and would do everything in their power to keep you alive, but out of the new knights, Gwaine was as unused to having someone to guard his back as Lancelot had been at the beginning due to too many years spent rudderless and alone, fighting his own battles. Unlike Lancelot, he was still wary of any of the knights besides those who had been there at the Round Table, though he hid it under laughter and jibes, and was unwilling to trust anyone to watch his back. Percival made a wordless vow to teach him.

He felt that it was a safe lesson to teach him. Sure, if you got too used to having someone watch your back and then that person fell, you could be in danger if you were alone and assumed you still had someone there for you. There were still days when he felt the ghost of Wyland at his back, the ghost of Brynne laughing at their antics. But here in Camelot, among the knights, their lives were far more stable than anywhere else that men who fought for their lives lived. If Percival fell, another man would step up and take his place at Gwaine's back. Now he just had to teach Gwaine to trust him.

With Wyland, trust had come instinctively from the bond they had as brothers. With Lancelot, it had come easily with spending time together.

With Gwaine it was harder. Trust came slowly, from plucking apples from a tree only he was tall enough to reach and tossing them to his fellow knight, from calling him Sir Gwaine in absolute sincerity whenever he had the opportunity, from speaking up to make occasional light-hearted jibes at his expense, from positioning himself to fight at Gwaine's back in battles when he didn't have to.

The day Gwaine tossed him an apple back with a grin, Percival thought he was getting somewhere. The day Gwaine positioned himself to fight at _Percival's_ back, he knew he was.

* * *

It was a good year.

* * *

It was just a shame it had to end.

* * *

For Percival, it ended the moment Lancelot walked through the veil, while Percival wasn't even there to watch out for him, too busy fighting off wyverns.

Merlin told him through tears that Lancelot died brave and determined, with a little smile on his face.

Percival knew someone had had to die to close the veil, and it wasn't that he would have wished that on anyone else. He just wished it had been him rather than Lancelot.

He had lost the second man he had absolutely trusted.

* * *

It was strange, having two ghosts at his back where there had once been one, where there had once been none.

* * *

The years came and went, and Percival took them in stride. He risked his lives for his brother-knights, and they risked theirs for him. Arthur became king, and Percival tried to keep an eye on Merlin as much as he could. He had never forgotten about the magic, but he could never figure out how to tell Merlin he knew, and he knew that made him a coward. But words had never come easy to him, and he disliked speaking of Lancelot now as much as he disliked speaking of Brynne and Wyland; he preferred to keep their memories tucked close to his heart, unspoiled by words. And speaking of Merlin's magic would require speaking of Lancelot.

So he tried to keep an eye on him from a distance, making sure he had food and rest on their trips, and told himself that was enough.

And he fought at Gwaine's back when he could, because much as Gwaine trusted the knights of the Round Table with his life, he was still a bit distant around anyone else. Elyan was somehow easier to talk to than most of the others, with his own sense of reticence and sharp sense of humor, and Percival fell in with him whenever he could.

And life was good.

* * *

There was the time when Lancelot came back to Camelot. At the start, Percival was overjoyed, willing to overlook the strangeness of it to have his friend back again. But by the end, the whispers through the palace said Lancelot had acted dishonorably with Guinevere, and Percival could never believe that of his honorable friend.

He found Merlin after learning that it had been Merlin who had taken Lancelot for burial. If anyone would know if something had gone wrong, it would be Merlin.

"That wasn't Lancelot, was it?" he asked.

Merlin watched him warily for a long moment, then finally shook his head, turning away with a sigh. "No," he said quietly. "If you want to honor Lancelot's memory, remember him as he was, not as this."

Percival accepted that with no further questions, and did not ask Merlin about it again.

It occurred to him later that he should have told Merlin then what he knew, but at the time he had been too caught up in the sudden, returned grief over Lancelot, and the moment was gone.

* * *

Then Elyan died in Gwen's arms, and again Percival was away dealing with the darts and could do nothing to protect him.

* * *

Gwaine's death was the worst since Wyland's, though, because it had been Percival who had taught him he could trust, and in the end it was Percival who let him down.

* * *

It was Percival who he asked to go with him to destroy Morgana; it was Percival who met Gwaine's eyes as they crouched on the tree, watching Morgana and her men come out, and nodded that he would go right as Gwaine went left, with the understanding that they would each come to the other's aid if that was needed. It was Percival who failed to kill Morgana when he grabbed hold of her, and it was Percival who woke from unconsciousness too late to do anything but snap his bonds and find Gwaine as he died.

Percival hadn't meant to betray Gwaine's trust, but he had done it effectively anyway. And Gwaine, one of the bravest men he knew, felt he died a failure.

He had died with Percival kneeling in front of him, cupping his face, smoothing his hair, begging him to live.

It was exactly the same way Wyland had died, all those years ago.

The weight of Gwaine's ghost at Percival's back was almost too great to bear.

* * *

Arthur was dead too, and for a time Percival felt as though everything he had ever fought for had crumbled into dust. He had lost the men he had taught to trust; he had lost the king he had fought for; he had lost the siblings who had trusted him. He had far too many ghosts standing at his back, accusing him of not standing at theirs. He didn't know, for a while, if he could ever let someone else stand at his back as they had again.

* * *

"I have magic," Merlin told Percival.

He was trembling slightly as he said it. Percival, shaking himself out of the fog he felt he had been wandering in for weeks, narrowed his eyes and studied Merlin. He had deep bags under his eyes and was somehow even thinner than when Percival had first met him. He looked exhausted and completely worn down.

And he was terrified, Percival realized. Utterly terrified of Percival's reaction.

He had started to babble in the silence as Percival pulled himself together. "I've had it since I was born," he said, talking so rapidly that his words were stumbling over themselves. "And I've used it ever since I came here – but only for Arthur, I swear, only in the good of Camelot. Gwen's planning to make magic legal soon, and she's planning to make me Court Sorcerer, and it's only fair to tell you first –"

"Merlin," Percival said firmly, cutting off the flow of words. "I know."

"And I understand –" Merlin was going on, but he cut himself off abruptly when the meaning of Percival's words sunk in. "Wait. You _know?"_

He sat down abruptly, and the look on his face was horribly near betrayal.

"I knew before I met you," Percival said quietly. "Lancelot told me." And then, because he couldn't bear the look on Merlin's face at all, he went on, "He did not intend to betray your trust. Neither of us expected to meet you again, and Lancelot wanted to be sure I did not hate magic before he read your letters to me."

Merlin's eyes had drifted away; he looked numb and stunned. After a moment he buried his face in his hands. "Right," he muttered vaguely. "Right."

After a moment he shook his head hard and looked up, a faint, fragile smile that was a poor shadow of his true smile forced onto his lips. "It's not fair to hold a grudge against you if I didn't want you to hold a grudge against me, is it?" he asked with forced lightness. "Just turns out we were both keeping secrets."

Percival was unused to the feeling that he had betrayed someone. When a man trusted him to guard their back, he guarded that trust with his life. The sense that he had let Merlin down completely, that Merlin had given him trust and he had taken that trust to _stab_ Merlin in the back, however unintentionally, was hard to bear, but it was all his own fault, and he accepted it. A dim memory of the time he had trusted the Lamia over Merlin, faded with all the magic involved, floated through the back of his mind, and he knew that for all he prided himself on not breaking trust, he had betrayed the slim man before him more than once.

"Merlin," he said quietly, knowing it was not enough, "I'm truly sorry."

Merlin tried to smile again. "It's not as if it's your fault," he said quietly. "I was the one keeping the larger secret. I just wish –"

He cut himself off, but Percival could fill in the end of his sentence pretty easily. _That I'd known you knew. That I had someone else in on the secret I could share the burdens with._ It wasn't as if he was entirely ignorant of what Lancelot had gotten up to with Merlin.

"It is my fault," he said steadily. "I should have been there to guard you, and by my own cowardice I wasn't." He swallowed, and went on before Merlin could find the words to deny that statement, "I would be honored to guard you now if you would let me."

It was the first time he had verbally spoken the offer, rather than offering it silently through his actions, but this situation needed it.

"Sure," Merlin said quietly, summoning up that ghost of a smile.

It wasn't as if offering it meant it would be accepted. Merlin, he thought, would be harder to teach trust to than Gwaine, and well-deservedly too, as Percival had betrayed him.

That didn't mean that Percival wasn't going to offer his trust through actions, though.

* * *

It wasn't nearly as easy to prove to Merlin that he was willing to guard his back as it had been with even Gwaine, mostly because Merlin didn't fight battles the usual way. He fought with magic, and he was used to fighting alone. Percival missed his first several opportunities because Merlin was still sneaking out to fight as he used to.

He finally caught Merlin in the stables one day, saddling a horse.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

"Errands," Merlin said, not looking at him, and went on with his work.

Percival saddled his horse as soon as Merlin had left and followed him.

Merlin gave him a very annoyed look and a roll of his eyes when he caught up to him. "What are you doing here?" he asked, more snappishly than he usually did.

"You're off to fight something magical," Percival answered him. "And I meant it when I offered to guard you."

"No offense, but I've been doing this on my own for years," Merlin said shortly. "I'm used to working alone."

Percival said nothing, because he had met two men who started with that attitude and they had trusted him in the end. And he might have utterly failed them, he might have led them wrong, but at least he could comfort himself by thinking that they had probably lived longer than they would have without him around.

He wished he'd been as skilled as he was now back when he started out. Maybe Wyland wouldn't have had to die.

In any case, it could do no harm to offer to guard Merlin's back.

"What are we facing?" he asked after a long moment.

Merlin huffed again, but since he answered, Percival figured he couldn't be too mad. "A lone sorcerer that broke away from the Saxons," he said. "He's got a few of the disgruntled men from that army with him, I think."

Percival nodded, and they rode on in silence.

When they came to the ruins where their foes were hiding, there was plenty of work for both Percival and Merlin. The sorcerer faced them with impressive threats against Camelot and the queen on the throne, and Percival tuned him out, left him to Merlin, and focused on not letting any of his men get to Merlin.

There were more than he could deal with on his own, however, and despite his best efforts the mercenaries were menacing Merlin.

Merlin suddenly shouted something, sharp and determined, and everyone in his vicinity went flying off their feet to crash into the walls.

Including Percival.

It was by no means the first time he'd been thrown off his feet by a magic-user, and he shook his head and struggled to get back to his feet quickly. It wasn't as though he blamed Merlin.

But Merlin had gasped sharply and was running to his side. "I'm sorry, Percival!" he exclaimed, reaching out to pull him up. "I'm so, so sorry. I forgot you were there."

Percival accepted his hand, though he mostly got to his feet by his own power. "You're not used to having anyone guard your back, are you?" he asked simply.

Merlin ducked his eyes, looking nearly as fearful as the day he had told Percival about his magic. He didn't answer the question. There was no need for him too.

"Then I'm going to change that," Percival said steadily. He clapped Merlin on the shoulder and moved to check on the others who had gone flying.

When he glanced back over his shoulder, the fear was gone from Merlin's stance, at least, and there was what he thought might be a glimmering hint of hope in Merlin's eyes.

* * *

He didn't stop following Merlin on his missions. Eventually, Guinevere started sending either him or Leon along every time Merlin would let her.

* * *

Percival overcame his intense dislike of speaking about those who had passed on to tell stories of Arthur to his son, and even stories of Lancelot and Gwaine once in a while too. And one night, when he was watching the prince while the queen finished up the last of her paperwork, with Amhar leaning sleepily against his side and the moon shining bright through the windows, he told Amhar a little about his siblings.

* * *

Percival stood by the queen's side and watched her back; he kept an eye out for the quiet threats in the court, the ones that even Leon didn't notice. He fought her battles and kept his loyalty to her. He stood at Leon's side and fought side by side with him.

For some reason he understood Gwaine now more than he ever had. There was only one knight he trusted to stand in the place where all the ghosts had stood, and that was Leon.

* * *

Percival met his wife at the wedding when Queen Gwen finally convinced Leon to get married.

Perhaps it was because he had marriage on his mind, but when he saw one of the ladies give congratulations to the new couple with nothing more than warm smiles, he wanted to introduce himself for some reason.

Introduce himself he did, and found out her name was Edalene.

They said almost nothing else to each other the whole evening, but they spent the vast majority of it standing by each other's side or dancing together.

Less than a year after Leon was married, Percival followed his example. He had found the one person he trusted utterly. She was the only one he whispered all his secrets to, as they lay together in the quiet and dark of the night after their marriage, and did not find it difficult to lay himself bare before. She took his secrets and guarded them with her life, and she gave him her secrets in return.

They trusted each other, and neither ever betrayed that trust.

* * *

Over the years, Merlin slowly got better about taking Percival or Leon with him when he went off to deal with magical threats. He still seemed to prefer to deal with them himself, but Percival took a page out of Merlin's book and sneaked out of the city when he noticed Merlin leaving, joining up with him when they were too far away from Camelot for him to easily turn back. Eventually, Merlin stopped protesting when he did this and accepted his presence with a tired smile. Percival took that for progress.

Merlin never again injured Percival in his magical battles, even when he threw magic around in a circle, and Percival knew that he had learned at least something about fighting magical battles with someone at your back. He himself was still often useful at thinning out the thugs or wyverns or serkets or whatever nasty backup the sorcerer they faced had, or Merlin could enchant his sword to work on magical creatures if they were attacking, and after a time Merlin seemed to get used to leaving some of the magical creatures to him.

When it came to the point that, during the process of running his plans by Guinevere, Merlin would shoot a sideways glance at Percival in a wordless, non-pressuring invitation to join him, Percival felt as though he had accomplished something tremendous. It wasn't the absolute trust that he would guard their back that Lancelot and Gwaine had given him, but it was a door inched invitingly ajar, and for Merlin, that was huge.

And somehow Merlin didn't die. Through all the years Percival half-guarded his back, Merlin didn't die.

That felt like a miracle.

Percival was glad. He didn't want to know what Merlin's ghost would feel like.

* * *

There came the day that Lancelot came back from the dead.

Merlin was clearly desperate to believe that he was really back as himself, and also obviously skeptical that he was. Percival wanted to believe this was his friend, but he had believed that once and been wrong. He didn't need Merlin's request to keep a sharp eye on the man for the rest of the day.

In spite of all that, when Merlin came back and declared that he believed it, that Lancelot was really back – Percival could never remember being happier since the day he married.

He clasped forearms with Lancelot and told him he was glad he was back – and could find nothing more to say.

That wasn't unusual.

Lancelot came back with him that evening, when they finally scattered. Percival introduced him to Edalene, who welcomed him warmly and briefly once things were explained, and his daughters and son. They sat together for a long time before the fire when the others were in bed, not saying much, just being there in each other's company.

That wasn't unusual either.

The fact that they hadn't done this in years was.

The tight hug Percival enveloped Lancelot in before they finally went to their beds, an hour or two before the dawn, wasn't exactly routine either.

But one of Percival's ghosts had suddenly become solid, flesh and warm and real, and Percival felt lighter when he went to bed than he had in years.

* * *

Elyan he greeted with a hug and somehow couldn't find anything to say. And then Elyan made one off-hand comment to him, and he talked more during the rest of that picnic lunch than he had to anyone but Edalene in years.

* * *

When Gwaine returned, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, Percival pulled him into a hug the moment he saw him. "Sorry," was what he said.

He knew Gwaine understood; the other knight inclined his head a bit. "All's well," he said simply, and clasped forearms like they had done it yesterday.

In the second battle against the Saxons, Percival watched his back from start to finish.

* * *

When Arthur came back, he said, "My king," and Arthur corrected him, "Arthur," again. And they smiled at each other, overbright, and there was nothing more to say.

* * *

Merlin got better about taking someone along to watch his back after the rest of the knights came back. A little bit of that, Percival thought, was that he had finally healed enough to stop punishing himself for not saving Arthur, but the most of it was that Lancelot and Gwaine had come back, and Merlin trusted them, especially Lancelot, to guard his back in a way he had never learned to trust Percival.

Percival knew that Lancelot was the only one who had been brave enough to fight magic with Merlin in their last lives. He knew that Gwaine had made it blindingly clear that he stood with Merlin even over Arthur. He knew that he had broken Merlin's trust, and he knew that he had no right to be hurt.

He was glad that Merlin did know how to trust someone, at least, to guard his back.

* * *

It was six months, perhaps, after Arthur's return that Merlin appeared at Percival's elbow one day as he was walking to the courtyard. "So," the Court Sorcerer began cheerfully, "Lancelot and I are riding out at dawn tomorrow morning to deal with the flock of wyverns that's attacking Gawant. Any chance you want to come with us?"

Percival stopped walking and stared at Merlin for a moment, so stunned was he. Merlin had never, _never_ asked Percival to come along – he had always wormed his way along somehow.

There was the offering of new trust in Merlin's eyes, a trust that Percival had thought he would never give him. And Percival was determined never to break it.

"Of course," he said, and reached out to give Merlin the handshake of the knights. After a moment's hesitation, Merlin clasped his forearm strongly.

"I'll see you at dawn, then," Merlin said brightly, and turned to leave.

But for once Percival thought more words were needed. "I did mean it," he said, "when I told you I would be honored to guard you. I still mean it."

Merlin turned to face him. "Yeah," he said. "I know."

He smiled, his old bright smile, and Percival could tell he _did_ know.

Only when Merlin had left did he let himself lean against the wall and draw a few deep breaths. Somehow, finally, Merlin had learned to trust, and he was humble enough to know that it was certainly not entirely due to him.

But it was enough to know that Merlin knew now, too, that Percival would watch his back until the day he died.

* * *

There were only two ghosts at Percival's back now, distant and shadowy ghosts that he knew from his childhood and had long made his peace with. He was happy, and he knew they would want him to be happy. And someday, someday when, perhaps, he was old and gray and had protected those he loved one last time, he would see them again in a place where no one needed to watch anyone's back.

* * *

Percival and his quiet wife raised four noisy daughters and one equally noisy son, and their children always, always had each other's backs.

* * *

A/N: So this story began because I was thinking as I was drifting off to sleep that after Gwaine was a loner for so long, he must have found it difficult to fight with the knights, trusting them to cover him. I'm not sure how my sleepy brain tangled Percival up with this thought, but the next thing you know, I have the basic outline of all Percival's values in my head. This chapter is also more choppy and with less dialogue than I tend to write, probably because that's the way Percival is, but I like it that way.

(And then after writing this, I realized that he was supposed to have lost his family due to Morgause's immortal army, and that – didn't fit at all with the timeline I'd come up with, so I'm afraid I ignored that part of his story. Sorry! Hopefully you guys can overlook that discrepancy with canon.)

Anyway, this is my take on Percival. I really want to do a piece from each of the knight's perspectives, and I think Gwaine is probably next.


	6. Chapter 6: Gwaine

**Chapter 6: Girls in Red Dresses (Gwaine)**

 _Trigger warning:_ themes of underage prostitution. Absolutely no details or descriptions of sex, but the idea is definitely present.

* * *

Gwaine's father died when he in the womb and Nelda was five years old, died in a battle for Carleon and left his wife and the two children she had struggled to conceive alone. His mother pleaded with the king for something to live on, and he ordered her turned out of the castle and the door barred behind her.

At age five when he learned the story, Gwaine started realizing how cruel the world could be.

His mother knew how to weave, and it was only her hands, moving constantly, that stood between them and starvation. Some days the thread they hung by was so thin it seemed like it would snap, but somehow they hung on.

When Nelda was in her teens, Gwaine got his first exposure to those even less fortunate than his family was. Nelda was a rebellious girl, fleeing the house at every opportunity and spending time in the less reputable sections of the town. Gwaine heard the whispers often that his sister was seen with the girls in red.

"Don't wear the red," Gwaine heard his mother pleading with Nelda, one night when he was sneaking down from the loft for something to drink. He froze and listened.

"Why not?" Nelda demanded stonily. "It's not as if I'm any better than them."

"I'm not saying you are," his mother answered, sounding on the verge of tears, "but I have fought and labored and starved every day since my Godwin died to keep from dressing in the red and to keep you from having to do it. Please, Nelda. It's not a matter of worth."

Nelda let out one sob; then from his spot on the stairs Gwaine could see his sister's shadow tumble into the shadow of their mother's embrace.

"It's not fair," Nelda sobbed. "It's not fair. None of them have mothers like you."

Gwaine crept back up to his attic, forgetting about his drink.

* * *

When Nelda was seventeen and Gwaine was twelve, carelessly hunting adventure with a wooden sword in hand whenever he got a spare minute, Nelda brought a girl in red home.

The girl was gasping, doubled over with her hands on her swollen stomach. Gwaine dropped his sword with a crash; Nelda faced her mother with fiery eyes.

"Please, Mother," she said. "She has nowhere else to have the baby."

Mother blinked twice; then she nodded and went to the bag of clean scraps of cloth.

"Of course," she said calmly. "Fill the kettle and boil some water, won't you, Gwaine? Here, lie down, daughter; you're safe here."

Gwaine got his crash course in where babies came from that evening.

When it was all over, the girl sat slumped against their wall, face wet with sweat and tears, eyes bright as she cradled her newborn son in her arms.

"What am I to do with you?" she whispered, crooning, to the baby, rocking him a little. "Mama can't provide for you at all."

"You could stay here," Mother said steadily.

The girl stared up at her with numb shock.

"I could teach you to weave," Mother offered, "and help you raise your son. At any rate, you're staying here tonight."

The girl stayed and learned to weave. Food and supplies were tighter than ever for a while, but Gwaine and Nelda were used to making do. After that, their doors were always open.

* * *

By the time Gwaine was seventeen, Nelda had married a wandering circusmaster with a flair for the dramatic and compassion for the fallen that mirrored hers and left on her own merry way. Their mother was dead, gone younger than she should be but with a peaceful smile on her lips and contentment in her last words. And the weaving she had begun was carried on by a whole shopful of girls who had used to wear red dresses.

There was no use for Gwaine here. He set off to see the world.

* * *

Gwaine realized far faster than he wanted to that there were too many girls in red dresses. Too many girls hanging around the taverns, leaning up against men with emptiness in their eyes, selling everything they had to live.

Girls like these had been part of Gwaine's life for years, more his mother's and sister's to help than his, but the first time a girl in a red dress with weary eyes and a ghost of a smile leaned on his shoulder, his anger flared to life. She couldn't be more than fifteen.

Gwaine took her with him, but not for the reasons anyone expected. He took her all the way back to the weaver's shop he thought he had left. He gave her to the girls who had stood where she stood, and he watched life come back to her eyes and her smile turn real as she saw a way out.

* * *

After that, Gwaine couldn't stop looking for the girls in red and looking to give them a way out. He worked where he could to pay his way – and so that he could pay for the girls he rescued to be set up in new lives, where they would have a way forward. He picked up tips on sword fighting from anyone willing to teach him, partly because he had been fascinated with swords since he was about seven and partly because he got into far too many altercations where swordplay was useful to know.

Most men who employed girls in red dresses took exception to Gwaine trying to rescue their girls. Gwaine took exception to their taking exception.

He couldn't take most of the girls back to the weaver's shop in Caerleon's kingdom, especially as his restlessness drove him further and further, led him to more and more taverns with less savory businesses going on underneath. He learned to scout around a bit in the towns, pick up the rhythms, try to find places that would be willing to take in his girls. He found that if he could ever find any girls who used to wear the red, they were often very ready to help him.

There were towns, in fact, where all that was needed was his sword and the girls already knew how they wanted to rescue themselves.

Gwaine fled every town and area before he could gain too much of a reputation. Partly he didn't want the men he crossed calling bounty hunters down on his head, partly he hated commitment, partly he was a little afraid of being accused of magic for spiriting people away. There was a reason he avoided Camelot.

He hardened over the years and tossed that fear away as childish. He tossed all fear away, as a matter of fact, because in a world where men thought they could rule you by fear, the best resistance was to be utterly fearless. He joked and jibed and swung his sword and saved the girls he could, and he laughed in the face of danger.

It wasn't that he was perfect by any stretch of the imagination; Gwaine loved drama and causing a scene whenever he could, whether it was for a good cause or not. He had been a wild child and he was a reckless man, and he knew he was far too much for anyone to put up with for long – there was a reason he never stayed around long enough for people to get tired of him. There was no one who cared about him left in the world (except Nelda, and they had lost contact years ago), and thus no one to stop him when he charged full speed ahead where angels would fear to tread. He liked kissing girls, just not as much as everyone seemed to think, although he flirted lightly and often. And he liked the taste of rum and ale and mead, and the way they let him forget how dark and cruel the world could be for a while.

It was just that he had decided long ago that he would do what he could to make it a little less dark and cruel.

* * *

Gwaine liked the tavern in the small settlement he had come across. Mary ran a clean place, and there was no hint of underhanded trickery or girls in red dresses. Gwaine settled down to enjoy a good mug of mead in peace and quiet for once. What? It wasn't that he didn't appreciate those things; he just couldn't stand them in large doses.

Of course, since the world was the way it was, the moment he settled down to enjoy peace and quiet, a group of thugs decided to show up, a bright-haired man who thought he had authority and his friend with a brilliant grin decided to take them on, and Gwaine decided he'd had enough of peace and quiet and threw himself back in the thick of things.

And that was how he wound up in Camelot, realizing that he had saved a prince, which was a disconcerting thought. Gwaine had decided long ago that he didn't mind in the least if he died saving someone no one else would consider dying for. He didn't want to be one of the ones who threw their lives away for useless royalty.

By the time his stay at Camelot came to an end, Gwaine had broadened his mind enough to make an exception for Arthur. He could change his mind enough to let one lone nobleman in, since he was actually noble. It wasn't a renunciation of Gwaine's lifelong principles or anything. At least Uther had firmly confirmed his suspicions that most kings were definitely not worth dying for.

Merlin, on the other hand – Merlin was the first man Gwaine thought of as a friend in many, many years. Gwaine had a healthy distaste for most men; they all had agendas hidden behind their eyes, and few cared who was hurt in the process. But Merlin – he had an agenda too, Gwaine was certain of it, but it wasn't malicious. Gwaine prided himself on reading character, and he was certain of that. As the days went on, he guessed it was as simple as keeping his prince alive – which was disappointingly common, but not incomprehensible.

Gwaine was to realize that it was both as simple and far more complicated than that.

But Merlin was clearly as lonely in some ways as Gwaine was; it was as painful for him to speak of his father as it was for Gwaine to speak of his, and there was comfort in sharing the memories. And Merlin was the first man in years to seriously ask Gwaine to stay, as if he'd prefer that option.

Merlin was the first person since childhood that Gwaine let in as a friend. There would eventually be others, but Merlin had won a place all of his own, and Gwaine would never forget that.

* * *

"I like that you tried, and that you know when to stop," Gwen told him.

Of course he knew how to stop. Gwaine had seen firsthand the damage done when a man didn't and vowed not to be that sort of man.

But she was more sincere in talking to him than many people were, and by the time Gwaine left Camelot, she felt the slightest bit like a friend too.

* * *

Sometimes things went badly south, as they did when he found a whole wagonload of girls set to be carried off to the slaver Jarl Gwaine had been hearing about for a while. He wasn't quite quiet enough in getting them loose, and Jarl's men came storming out of the pub where they had been having supper.

Gwaine shoved the bag with all the gold he had on him at the nearest girl – the tallest one who had hung back to talk to him.

"Go," he hissed. "Find a new life – all of you. I'll hold them off."

It was much less than he usually did for them, but with his sword coming into immediate demand, it was all he could do.

"Come for me, have you?" he called merrily to the advancing guards. "I'm afraid I'm not as pretty as what you might have been looking for!"

He got himself caught and carted off as a slave, but ah well. That was what life and adventures were made of. At least the last time he glanced over his shoulder all the girls had vanished into the shadows.

Being gotten out of Jarl's castle by the Prince of Camelot and Merlin, who was still the only man Gwaine bothered calling a friend – that was something he hadn't seen coming. Definitely wasn't complaining, though.

* * *

"Paperwork, really?" Gwaine complained. "I thought all there was to becoming a knight was those little sword-taps."

"You thought wrong, then," Arthur said with a smirk. "I'll leave you to it."

"Abandoning us in our hour of need?" Gwaine called after him. "What kind of prince is that?"

He didn't let on that half his complaining was because he had realized that Percival could neither read nor write, and Elyan was obviously not used to doing it often. Only he and Lancelot were filling out the forms with ease, and he wanted to make the help they were offering less obvious or embarrassing.

Then he saw one line in the document, and froze.

"Name of wife or dependents, for salary to be forwarded to in case of death."

For a moment Gwaine couldn't move and was fighting not to let tears come to his eyes.

Then he dashed a quick "not applicable" onto that line and moved on. But that was the moment that he truly made peace with being a knight.

* * *

There were very few girls who wore the red around Camelot, which Gwaine appreciated. But there was one day when he was out on patrol, riding through the woods by himself, and came across a young woman by the side of a road near one of the nearby settlements. She was apparently nursing a young baby, a dirty shawl hiding her shoulders and chest from sight, and her dress was flaming red.

Gwaine reined in his horse; he wouldn't have left any young woman alone in the woods, but he especially wanted to talk to this girl. "Good afternoon!" he called out cheerfully. "Sir Gwaine of Camelot here; I mean you no harm. Where do you go this fine afternoon?"

"Isn't it obvious?" the girl asked tiredly. She lowered her baby – thin, wrapped in a dirty blanket – to lie in her lap, and adjusted her shawl around her shoulders. "Unless you'd rather take your pleasure here," she added as he dismounted. "I do charge, you know."

Gwaine stayed by his horse. "When I said I meant you no harm, I meant every word," he said, steel in his voice. Not the first time his intentions had been mistaken, but that was not a direction he was _ever_ going to go. "I'm not going to touch you, my lady. I wish to offer assistance."

"Assistance." The girl laughed, the sound bitter, and her baby squalled softly. "What assistance do you want to offer me?"

"To give you another way to earn a living," Gwaine told her. "If you're going to Camelot, I know the tavern could use another barmaid. Or there's apprenticeships where you could earn a skill for a living."

The girl's eyes widened. "So you're _that_ Gwaine," she said. "Never thought you'd be a knight."

Gwaine could never decide if his reputation in the underworld was more helpful or annoying. "Never thought I'd be a knight either, mi'lady," he said cheerfully. "Destiny has a way of taking us to places we never thought we'd be, it seems. Now where and whither shall I escort you, my lady?"

"Morwenna," the girl said. She adjusted her shawl deftly to bind her baby on her back and picked up a small bundle. "I'm no lady."

"Ah, but to me you are," Gwaine told her cheerfully.

Morwenna snorted, shaking back her tangled hair and standing up. Gwaine knew better than to offer her a hand. "To Camelot, then, I suppose," she said.

Gwaine chattered all the way to Camelot, walking beside her and leading his horse. It seemed to help, sometimes, if he kept up a chatter that he clearly didn't expect any answers to, and since Gwaine was allergic to silence unless absolutely needed, it worked out well. Morwenna, though, filled his chatter with sarcastic commentary whenever she had an opportunity, and they eventually settled into more natural conversation. By the time they got to Camelot, Gwaine had learned that her baby daughter's name was Ravenel, that she had been on her own since her mother died some years ago, and that the town leaders had finally declared she was besmirching the village as she tried to stay alive and kicked her out. Gwaine had somehow told her a bit about Nelda, about growing up with his mother's weaving the only thing between them and starvation.

He really had to stop giving out key pieces of his past to random strangers, no matter how trustworthy they seemed.

"So where to now?" Gwaine asked as they came near Camelot. "The tavern?"

Morwenna winced just a bit. "Please," she said softly, "if I have options, I'd rather not."

"Of course you have options," Gwaine told her. "Do you have any skill you'd like to develop? Helps just a bit with deciding on apprenticeships."

Morwenna bit her lip and glanced at the ground.

"Weaving?" she asked softly, looking at him sideways.

Something knotted and relaxed all at once, deep in Gwaine, but all he said was, "Of course. The weaving mistress is a good lady." And he'd scouted her out before and knew she'd be okay with an apprentice.

"And now through the front gate?" Morwenna asked a bit bitterly, glancing down at her bright, tattered dress.

"You wound me, my lady," Gwaine said dramatically as he tethered his horse to a tree to leave behind for now. "You don't think a knight of Camelot has better ways of getting into the city?"

For the first time that day, perhaps, her smile was genuine.

* * *

By the time Gwaine slipped back into the castle's courtyard, he was extremely late for coming in from patrol, which was probably really bad after the recent scare with undead armies and all of that. Gwaine supposed that was why Sir Leon reamed him out about it, unless it was just that Camelot was this picky all of the time. But he could catch the hint of actual caring in the scolding, which was unique in his experience. Besides, Leon had signed up to fight undead soldiers with the rest of them, so he couldn't hate him for being stuffy or rule-bound too much.

"Don't worry about me," he said when Leon ran out of steam, clapping him on the shoulder. "I always bounce back. Even when you don't want me to."

Leon didn't quite look like he knew what to do with that, so Gwaine went off to stable his horse.

Morwenna would sleep safely tonight for the first night in far too long, her baby protected, with a roof over her head and a kind woman the only other soul in the house. To be the connection to set that up, Gwaine would take a thousand well-meaning scoldings.

* * *

Normally, after Gwaine helped a girl find herself a chance at a new life, he never saw her again; his wandering vagabond ways saw to that. So it was a bit of a surprise, even though it shouldn't have been, when he was down in the marketplace one day and a pretty voice with a bit of bite to it called out, "Sir Gwaine!"

He turned to find Morwenna, dressed in modest blue, waving at him from the stall selling woven cloth. She was smiling, even if there was an edge to it.

Gwaine tossed a coin to a flower-seller and plucked a tiny blue flower that matched her dress. "Good day, my lady," he said, walking up to Morwenna. "How fair ye?'

"I fair well, Sir Knight," she told him, and there was sincerity under the lighthearted tone. "Though I doubt I can interest you in buying cloth today?"

"I'm afraid all my shirts at the moment are insultingly intact," Gwaine answered, grinning. "I merely come this way to acknowledge my lady." And he held out the blue flower to her.

She laughed, not reading anything into it, exactly the way he wanted, and stuck it in the woven roof of the stand. "There," she said. "Now we're as fancy as the castle down here, all decorated up."

Gwaine smiled and leaned a careless hip against her stall. "How's Ravenel doing?" he asked.

Morwenna's eyes softened. "She's doing well," she said quietly. "She's with Mistress Kendra today while I man the stall." She folded a piece of cloth suddenly, not looking at Gwaine. "Thank you so much for taking me to her," she said quietly. "I can't say how much it means."

"Of course," Gwaine said, light but as sincere as he knew how to be. "You don't have to thank me for decency."

Morwenna smiled at him, tears catching in the corner of her eyes, and Gwaine thought she was quite the prettiest girl he'd seen in a long time.

He was used to thinking girls pretty and not acting on it, though. He knew Morwenna wouldn't be ready for any romantic thoughts for a long time, if ever, and that was fine by him.

* * *

He wound up talking to Morwenna more than he expected over the years, though, because she was never shy of striking up a conversation with him whenever they ran into each other. He gave her flowers every time he saw her, cheap wildflowers, and it became a running joke between them that she could decorate the whole stall with all the flowers he'd given her over time. But he got to watch her eyes slowly lose their haunted look, her voice the sharp edge meant to ward off others before they could get close and hurt her. He got to see her with her baby wrapped warm in her arms, cooing soft mother-things to her daughter. And he wondered if Nelda had children, if he had nieces and nephews he'd never gotten in contact with, who would have been loved like this little girl.

One time Morwenna told him, quietly and in confidence, that she and Kendra were doing everything they could to help out girls at risk in Camelot, by the castle and in the surrounding towns. There was no underground conspiracy to enslave girls here, like Gwaine had taken on with nothing other than his sword elsewhere, but there were unprotected girls everywhere. Maybe especially in Camelot, with all the magical attacks that lead to casualties of parents and guardians here.

Gwaine was thoroughly approving. And that night Gwaine sneaked into the records room, crossed out "not applicable" on his form, and filled in "Morwenna the weaver of the lower town" as the one to whom his salary should go when he died.

It wasn't that he had feelings for her; it was that he knew his life was still as precarious as a knight as it had been when he was a wanderer, and he wanted Morwenna to have stability and the ability to reach out to others when he was gone. More than anyone else he knew, she might as well benefit.

* * *

And then Gwaine died.

* * *

And proceeded to spend an interesting few years discovering what it was like to live under a lake, learning just how far he could drive the princess before he drove him completely nuts, getting to know Lancelot and Elyan better than he ever had in life, and getting a few lessons on manners in the form of meaningful looks from Freya.

Also watching events in Camelot on the underside of the lake's surface. Freya was tied to Merlin, meaning it was easiest for her to show whatever he was doing. She could follow Gwen for Arthur and Elyan's sakes, and once Amhar was born they all wanted to see him too.

But in all the years under the lake, Gwaine caught only a few glimpses of Morwenna, on the edges once or twice when Gwen went down to the lower town.

He couldn't ask Freya to look in on her, because how would he explain that to anyone? There was nothing between them that gave him the right to do that. So he kept his tongue behind his teeth and contented himself with sincerely hoping she was well and getting his salary.

* * *

And then they all went back, which was more fun than Gwaine had had in a long time. Having been dead provided a source of endless pranks and jokes he could play. Not to mention that he finally got to meet Amhar in person. The best part of being alive, though, was finally being able to support Merlin again. He'd lost sight of that a bit, somehow, in his later years as a knight, and he hadn't forgiven himself for that. After years of watching Merlin quietly grieve and try to go on with life while being unable to do anything, there was something incredibly good about being able to say what he wanted to say, to be there for Merlin in the old ways he'd used to be in the beginning of their friendship.

Somehow he survived the battle with the Saxons. He didn't know how.

* * *

But given everything going on, it was quite some time after he got back to Camelot before he finally got a chance to look in on Morwenna.

He hadn't wanted to before he went to fight the Saxons, because he felt it would be far too strange to reintroduce himself only to say goodbye and go off to die. But then he came back, and things had calmed down a little.

He was on his way to the training grounds one day, when he ran into Merlin and Freya going the other way. Freya was laughing about something, which – Gwaine couldn't ever remember hearing her laugh in the lake. It seemed only Merlin could get her to do that.

"I swear it's true!" Merlin was saying. "All I could do – oh, hello, Gwaine."

"Definition of lovebirds, you two are," Gwaine told them, grinning. "Don't mind me."

But when he was out of their way, he didn't go to the training grounds. Instead, fifteen minutes later, he found himself knocking at the door of the house in the lower town where Morwenna lived.

She opened the door – and promptly slammed it shut in his face.

"Morwenna?" Gwaine asked tentatively. He realized he'd forgotten to bring any flowers, but there was a flowering vine growing over the door, and he quickly broke a blossom off.

Morwenna cracked the door ajar. There were tears in her eyes. She was older and still just as beautiful.

"Is it really you?" she asked.

"The one and only," Gwaine answered. "At your service, my lady." He swept a bow, holding out the flower.

Morwenna let out a sob; then she snatched the flower from him, flung open the door, and slapped him.

"Ow!" Gwaine exclaimed, more startled than hurt. "Morwenna! What was that for?"

"How could you do that to me?" Morwenna demanded hotly. "You never tell me you have any intentions toward me, but when you die, I get your salary as if I was your wife! You come back, and instead of dropping in and explaining, hey, Morwenna, this was whatever I actually meant with that little stunt, you go haring off to fight the Saxons! What is a lady to think?"

"I didn't know you cared," Gwaine said. He meant it to come out teasing, but it came out startled and sincere instead.

"Of course I cared!" Morwenna shot back hotly. "I didn't know you cared!"

"Mother?" a voice asked within the house. "Who is it?"

Morwenna half-choked on a sob, then swung the door open.

"You might as well come in, you renegade knight, you," she said. "Ravenel!" she called into the house. "Sir Gwaine is here!"

Ravenel came running into the front room as Gwaine came in, dark eyes the mirror image of her mother's flown wide. Gwaine stopped short at the sight of her, because in the years he had been gone she had grown into a young lady on the cusp of womanhood, and she looked so much like her mother the day he had met her, except without the haunted eyes.

"Uncle Gwaine!" she cried, and flung her arms around his neck as she had when she was a little girl. Dropping down to stand on her toes, she glanced quickly between him and her mother.

"I'm going out with Kym, Mother," she said mischievously. "Solve this before I get back!" And she was out the door before either of them could say anything.

"Stubborn girl," Morwenna said, but there was immense fondness in her tone. Then she spun on Gwaine again, eyes flashing. "So?" she demanded. "What's your smooth-tongued explanation?"

But he noticed that sometime between the door and now she had tucked the flower he had given her into her hair.

It was the first time she had ever done that.

Gwaine swallowed hard, and prepared to give more honesty than he often did. "I didn't leave you the salary because I thought of you as my wife," he said. "I left it to you because I knew you and Kendra were going to try to help, and I wanted to support you if I died. I did think you were the loveliest woman I knew," he added in a sudden determination to be utterly honest, "but I didn't think you were ready for that, and I didn't want to push."

"You fool," Morwenna told him, but it was far more teasingly possessive than demeaning. "There's legends about you, you know? That I heard before I knew you. That you appear everywhere where you're most needed, but you never, never stay. I didn't think you'd stay, even if I asked. And you never asked me if – if I was ready."

Gwaine felt as though he'd been punched in the gut. "Morwenna, I wasn't all that," he protested. "I was no legend – I was just a stupidly reckless man trying to do a bit of good."

"I _know_ ," Morwenna told him hotly. "I knew that! But I didn't think you'd stay even for me. And then you went and died."

"I'm sorry I didn't come back after I came to life," Gwaine told her. "I – I didn't know. And I thought I was going to die fighting the Saxons. I didn't want to say hello and goodbye again."

Morwenna pulled in and blew out a deep breath.

"Well, you didn't die," she said, and her voice was calmer. "So what do you say now?"

"I say it's up to my lady what she wants to do," Gwaine told her steadily.

Morwenna stood for a moment, as if irresolute; then she leaned up and kissed him on the lips, very lightly and quickly.

"I'm ready now," she said, "if you want to court me like the knight you are."

"My lady," Gwaine told her, bowing low, "it would be my honor."

* * *

Gwaine had been married for a year, cheerful and happy in the new home he had on this side of the lake, knowing that if something somehow happened to him Morwenna would be provided for, when the circus came to Camelot.

It was a bright, gaudy thing, full of people with all sorts of things up their sleeve. So many had magic that Gwaine understood why he didn't remember this circus in Camelot at all from his past life.

But he went, as he had made a habit of going to all the circuses he had ever come across. The magic and the stunts awed him and for a time made him almost forget what he was there for.

It was when Morwenna tugged his arm and whispered in an amused voice, "That lady looks a bit like you," that he came back to himself, and looked.

She did look a bit like him. Her hair was iron-gray, and there were lines in her face, but she still had Mother's laugh, and her eyes were still bright.

"Nelda?" he whispered under his breath, and Morwenna, bless her, understood at once.

"Then go!" she whispered, and gave him a shove.

Gwaine stumbled forward with the force of it, almost into the lady's lap. She looked up and stared at him, and then her eyes went wide.

"Nelda?" he asked again.

"Gwaine," she said, and the next moment she had scrambled to her feet and had him in her arms. And Gwaine felt twelve again, young and safe in his sister's embrace.

* * *

At thirty-five, Gwaine finally learned, once and for all, that maybe the world had cold and cruel parts, but maybe there was friendship, maybe there was love, maybe there was warmth that mattered more.

* * *

A/N: Gwaine is at once hard and easy to write for. He's easy because he's actually fairly well developed in canon, but hard because it still feels like there's a lot we don't know about him, and depths we never quite understand. I don't know if I really managed to capture him in this story, but I tried. It's definitely more canon-adjacent than canon-compliant, and darker than most things I usually write, and with canon characters less prominent than usual. So next week we'll be back to more usual things. Also I'll probably get back to writing moments instead of overviews of knight's lives - they're fun, but they are long!

I'm planning to try updating once a week for the rest of the summer, probably on Mondays, and I may update on other dates if I get enough written. This is, of course, until I run out of ideas, but at the moment I still have a lot. Stay tuned!


	7. Chapter 7: Gwen

**Chapter 7: Together or Not At All (Gwen)**

The night after they got back from Caerleon, Gwen and Arthur sat quietly together in Arthur's old room, which had used to be their quarters and was slowly becoming their quarters again, and it dawned on Gwen that she was married.

Gwen had gotten used to being a widow. It had taken her a while to reconcile herself to the fact that the man she loved most in the world was never going to be part of her life again, and in the throes of her grief she had vowed never to marry again, for she could never love any man as she had loved Arthur.

That was still true, and was a large part of why she had never married since. There were other, more practical reasons, such as that if she married again everyone in the court (except perhaps her few closest friends, loyal to her) would assume that her husband would be king, and she the figurehead in his shadow, and Gwen loved Camelot too much to let that happen. There was also the consideration that if she bore a second husband sons, there might be tension as to whether Amhar or this man's son would be the heir to the throne, and Gwen was not going to introduce strife into her country like that.

There was even the little consideration, occurring to Gwen sometimes at night, that Merlin might not be loyal to any man besides Arthur or Arthur's son on the throne of Camelot, and she didn't know how Camelot would survive without Merlin.

But overarching all the other considerations, there was the fact that Gwen loved Arthur still, even if it was a love of the distant past after all these years, and she could never let another man fill that place in her heart, her life. That place was permanently filled, even if now by a memory.

And then Lancelot had returned with the news that Arthur was coming back, and thrown the life Gwen had carefully constructed out of the ruins of her grief into a whirlwind.

She didn't know if it would ever be like it had been, if it could ever be, if the Arthur who was returning could fill the place she had occupied with a ghost all these years.

And then Arthur returned, and Gwen dashed across the courtyard of Camelot, and he caught her in his arms and swung her around and kissed her as if they had been together only yesterday. And suddenly the hole in Gwen's life had vanished, the ghost was real, and she was happier than she had been in years.

Ever since then, Gwen hadn't let herself think ahead. Arthur alive was so much more big and real than the imagined Arthur she had kept carefully alive in her head all these years, filling the ancient hole left gaping in her effortlessly with his presence. And Gwen carefully hadn't thought ahead, because there was a very large part of her that was convinced he was going to die in this battle with the Saxons, brought back simply to save them and die again. If these were going to be the last days she had with him, she was not going to spoil them by constantly wondering if they were going to be the last days. She was _not_. So for once in her life, Gwen flung foresight to the wayside and focused on what it meant to have Arthur back, even if just for these few weeks, creating memories she could cling to for years upon years ahead.

Except now he had lived through the battle, and Gwen had to learn how to live as a wife to a living husband again.

The last time she had adjusted to being a wife, it had been the social status that was hard to adjust to and the husband who was very easy. Gwen had known she loved Arthur for years, known he loved her, known they were both willing to wait, and despite everything that had come between them, there was a world of joy in knowing that they were finally free to be together. Beginning to build her life with Arthur had been the easy part; adjusting to the transition from servant to queen, in spite of the fact that she had been preparing for it for some time, had been the hard part.

It was the exact opposite now. Gwen was used to being queen; Gwen had been queen for years and had been a good queen too, she thought. It was adjusting to having a husband back that was the hard part.

But Gwen still loved Arthur, and she knew he still loved her, and the effortless way they had fallen back by each other's sides since his return told her that even now that they were in it for the long haul, even though it would be different without the dagger of a major battle hanging over their heads, they could adjust to being husband and wife again.

She looked up over the top of the book she had been pretending to read at Arthur, who was pretending to frown at some paperwork. Getting up, she walked over to him and laid her hand on his shoulder.

"Come take the pins out of my hair?" she invited.

It had been their favorite way to relax in the evenings before, and something relaxed in Arthur's face at her invitation. "Of course," he said, and followed her over to the couch.

For a moment neither could find anything to say, as his fingers worked their way deftly into her hair; then Gwen, casting her mind back, remembered something suddenly and asked him, "Do you remember the first time you kissed me?"

Arthur laughed softly. "Of course," he said.

Gwen twisted to look at him, and saw he was smiling the gentle smile he reserved for her. "It was a long time ago, when I stayed at your house during the tournament and realized what a lovely lady you were," he said. He reached out and laid his hand gently over hers, as he had used to do so often.

Gwen swallowed a sob, tenderness welling up deep within her. "I held onto the memory of that kiss," she said softly. "At the time I thought it was the only time you'd ever kiss me."

She had clung to every moment they had together, every kiss stolen in secret, always knowing they could be torn apart at any moment. Not until the day Arthur had crowned her queen had she dared to believe for certain that their love could last.

Perhaps she had always been preparing for him to be torn away from her.

How was she to deal again with the certainty of him in her future?"

"I remembered it too," Arthur told her. "I'd never met anyone as straightforward and caring and loyal as you, Gwen."

"You reminded me of that kiss to make me smile before you went to fight the Dorocha," Gwen murmured, smiling now in spite of herself.

"It worked, didn't it?" Arthur said. He tightened his fingers around her hand and lifted it to press it against his heart. "Guinevere," he said, suddenly steady, "I know this is strange, taking up the threads of who we used to be, years on. But I still want to make something of this."

There was a question in his eyes, in his voice. Gwen swallowed hard and leaned up to kiss him as she had once done so often.

"Does that answer your question?" she asked.

"It begins to," he answered, smiling and taking her into his arms to kiss her again.

They'd kissed before since he'd come back, of course, but there was something new about this, as new as that kiss in the light of dawn in her house had been, the newness of a beginning they were determined to make something of together.

And Gwen thought that evening, as they talked and laughed about the past together, curled close in each other's arms as they would once have never dared to be, that they could make a future out of this foundation, the two of them together.

* * *

There came the weekly day when Gwen had opened the throneroom doors to anyone who wanted to come with a complaint, happening for the first time after the battle as things got back to usual, and Gwen was having a very bad day.

Marian, her normal maid, was sick, so Gleda had been the one to help her get ready, and there wasn't the easy camaraderie that usually helped Gwen to prepare for her day between them. Merlin had a cold and had sneezed all over everyone's food at breakfast, so they were all liable to get sick now. And when they all came into court, Arthur naturally took one throne, leading Gwen to the other. There was nothing wrong with that, but Gwen had lately brought back out Arthur's throne and given it to Amhar to watch the court proceedings, as he was getting old enough for her to bestow the beginnings of power on him. Arthur on his old throne meant Gwen had to find a new place for Amhar to stand.

It was such a little thing, but it was the first thing to irritate her about the open court. It had been her idea, to make a place where the word of a servant, a peasant, was as much to be believed as the word of a knight or a noble, and she thought it had done a world of good. To have Arthur suddenly running it as if it was _his_ rankled somehow.

It got worse as the court was held. The people came before the court with their litany of complaints, but half the time as Gwen was preparing to pronounce judgement, Arthur jumped ahead of her and pronounced judgement himself. It wasn't that he was biased or unfair in his judgements, but Gwen had gotten so used to dealing with her people that she had assumed she was going to be the one giving the judgements today. Clearly she should have talked about this with Arthur beforehand.

That was the last straw that pushed her to the boiling point. She was barely listening to Arthur and Amhar as they left the courtroom as a family, though she knew she should have been paying attention. In the back of her mind, it registered that Amhar was commenting on the mercy Arthur had shown during the court, which was a good thing for him to recognize, but not what she was stewing on just then.

"I'm going to Uncle Merlin's chambers," Amhar said. "Anna's coming up for a lesson today." He smiled at Gwen and skipped off.

"You've done a good job raising him," Arthur said approvingly, watching Amhar as he left.

And suddenly Gwen could contain the bitterness no longer. They had reached their shared quarters, and she strode into them angrily.

"That's all I've done, all I'm good for," she said coolly, spinning to face Arthur as he closed the door. "Raising your son to be king."

Gwen-the-servant would never have said it. Gwen-the-new-young-queen might have thought it, but it would be very unlikely that she would have said it.

Guinevere-who-had-been-queen-for-13-years said it with few regrets.

Arthur turned to look at her with wide eyes. "Guinevere," he said gently, stepping toward her, "I didn't mean it that way."

"Didn't you?" Gwen demanded. She moved to put the desk between them. Ever since Arthur had come back, he had been very affectionate physically, and they both needed it, the tangible proof that he was alive. But just now she wasn't going to be distracted that way.

"Let me tell you something," Gwen the queen said steadily. "When you died, do you know who I could trust to stand behind me when I was on the throne?"

Maybe he knew, because he had watched from the lake. That wasn't the point.

"Merlin, Gaius, Leon, and Percival," Gwen told him. She ticked them off on her fingers. "Everyone else bowed and scraped before me – and before I announced I was pregnant, those four uncovered eleven schemes to replace me on the throne.

"Do you know how many people stood behind me once they realized I had borne a son and heir? Every last person in your court."

Arthur stared at her, lips parted. "Guinevere," he said slowly, "I didn't mean –"

"Things can't go on this way," Gwen interrupted him, determined to get this off her chest. "I'm not the timid queen of your early years, learning how to be told Your Majesty without blushing, or heaven forbid your queen under Morgana's power. I've ruled longer than you have, Arthur, even if I was just a servant girl once. And I'm not going to go back to being the figurehead standing at your side, the proof of your fertility."

"I never wanted you to be!" Arthur retorted angrily. "I wanted – Gwen, what do you want?" And then his eyes widened with understanding; Arthur could be very perceptive at times. "This is about the open court, isn't it?"

"I was the one who instituted it," Gwen said quietly, less angry now. "I wanted a place where everyone could come equally with their complaints. I'm not trying to be jealous," she said quickly. "I know you're king, and it's only right that you judge."

Arthur paced down the room and back instead of replying, then suddenly turned to her and leaned on the back of a chair. "This didn't matter before, did it?" he asked, watching her face intently. "When I first came back from Avalon? Because we were dealing with a war, and that was always my area more than yours. But now that it comes to the day-to-day matters of running the kingdom, I'm encroaching on what has been your place for years."

Gwen's eyes filled with tears at his accuracy; her anger had faded. "Arthur," she pleaded softly, "I don't want this to come between us. But we need to discuss what we're going to do before we go to the court; we can't afford to appear divided on the thrones. And - and I need a role to play."

"Right," Arthur said quietly, looking very thoughtful. He leaned over his arms and studied the table for a minute; then he straightened up and met Gwen's eyes.

"What if you rule Camelot?" he asked.

Gwen gasped. "What do you mean?" she demanded. "You – you're the king of Camelot!"

"I'm also the king of Albion now," he answered, "and I keep getting requests to fix all the problems in all the far-flung kingdoms. Bayard has requested help in healing his country from civil war, and that's only the worst of all the letters I've gotten since we came home. I don't know if I can handle ruling Camelot and Albion all at once. So you rule Camelot as you have so skillfully all these years, and I rule Albion."

He was obviously sincere, and it took Gwen a long moment to swallow down the deep pleasure that brought a lump to her throat at her Arthur, the prophesied greatest King of Camelot, showing such faith in her. If she had wanted a reward for long years ruling alone, she had it in that moment.

"On one condition, Arthur," she said. She came out from behind the desk and took a few steps toward him.

He inclined his head in a question.

"The people of Camelot are your people too," Gwen told him. "You help me with ruling Camelot; you help me judge and let the people learn to love you again. And you let me help you rule Albion. We can't rule alone, Arthur; it's terribly lonely."

"So we ask," Arthur said, his face lighting up. "We ask each other for advice, and we rule together. But for the most part, we each have our own responsibilities."

Gwen smiled shakily and nodded. "Thank you, Arthur," she said, reaching out to take his hands in hers.

"Gwen," he protested, "what are you thanking me for? Without you as queen, I'd have had no kingdom to come back to, much less a whole alliance of kingdoms to rule. You –"

Gwen stopped him by reaching up to press her lips to his. He pulled her closer, and they stood for a moment, wrapped in each other's arms, in the light streaming from the window, just breathing together.

"I'm not the Gwen you knew," she said softly at last, curling against his chest. "I'm not the young queen figuring out my way."

"I'm not the Arthur you knew either," he returned quietly. "I've spent all these years watching you and learning what I wish I had done differently."

"We're neither of us the same," Gwen concluded softly, feeling a little shiver go down her spine.

"And – and yet we know each other," Arthur said. "Don't we?" he asked suddenly, pulling back to look her in the eyes. "At the end of the day, we still _know_ who each other is."

And it was true, Gwen thought quietly. They hadn't known each other on some superficial level; they had known and understood each other down to bedrock, down to the depths, and loved each other for that. And whatever else had changed, that really hadn't.

That knowing was enough to build a life, to build a marriage, upon.

"Yes," she said, quietly, like a wedding vow. "Yes, we do." And she curled back into his chest.

* * *

Despite the fact that she had felt like this once before, it took Gwen a while to put together how she was feeling and figure out the reason. She had never dreamed of experiencing this a second time, and the day she _knew_ , she was suddenly breathless and had to sit down. This was the tangible proof that this new reality was true and permanent, that she was really married again for good. But this time that was an incredibly comforting thought, and Gwen sat and sobbed for a few minutes with the healing hope of it.

Then she got up and fairly ran to find Arthur.

She found him talking to Merlin on the battlements overlooking the country. Merlin took one look at her and the way she was looking at Arthur and quickly backed up.

"If you'll excuse me, Arthur," he said.

Arthur, whose back was to her, hadn't seen her approach as Merlin had. "Just because you get to keep your fancy position at court doesn't mean you can just ignore me and go running off in the middle of our conversation, Merlin," he said lightly.

"I should say it does," Merlin retorted. "Court Sorcerers are hired to keep prattish kings in their places." And with that he fled, but not without giving Gwen a conspiratorial smile.

Some days it was good that Merlin was perceptive – or else had learned her moods over all the years they spent working together. Gwen loved him, but she didn't want him there just now.

"Merlin!" Arthur was calling indignantly, when he turned and finally noticed her. "Guinevere!" he exclaimed, all irritation fading away. "What are you doing here?"

Gwen was out of breath from running up the stairs and with the breathless hope of her news, and words completely failed her once again. Reaching out, she caught Arthur's hand and pressed it flat on her dress over her stomach.

"What – what –" Arthur stammered uncomprehendingly, glancing back and forth between his hand and her face.

Gwen gulped a deep breath of air and found her voice. "Arthur," she said, "I'm pregnant."

She was half-laughing, half-crying, and Arthur let out an incredulous laugh and curled his fingers around her stomach. "You're pregnant!" he exclaimed joyously. "It's my baby."

"Of course it's your baby," Gwen shot back, but she knew what he meant. This was a tangible proof of him returned, the security of their new relationship, the proof of their love, once and future, carried safe within her womb.

Arthur shook his head, smiling as widely as she'd ever seen him in his delight, and stepped forward to wrap her close in his arms, their new little one tucked safely between their bodies.

They stepped forward at last to stand against the battlement and look out at the country below, flushed in sunset.

It was the same balcony where Gwen had once told Merlin that she was carrying Amhar.

Gwen had always heard the ladies of the lower town talk about how lovely it was to be pregnant with the man you loved by your side. Gwen had swallowed back any comments, because when she had been pregnant the man she loved had been dead.

It would be different, she thought, being pregnant now in this time of security and peace and joy, with Arthur here, than it had been when everyone was grieving and she was queen alone.

"I never thought I'd get to hear you tell me you were pregnant," Arthur said quietly, after a few minutes of silence.

Gwen was tucked up against his side, his arm warm and secure around her shoulders. "I never thought I'd get to carry a baby with you here," she murmured.

And there was nothing more to say about that, except that they both clung a little more closely to each other, because they knew that getting this time together was a gift, one they both treasured dearly.

"We definitely can't name it Arthur if it's a boy," her husband commented.

Gwen laughed in spite of herself. "What if it's a girl?" she asked.

"Then I hope she turns out as lovely as her mother," Arthur said sincerely.

Gwen choked on a laugh, still half-hysterical with joy somehow, and lifted her head to kiss him lightly. "I'm glad you're here," she whispered.

It didn't cure everything, having this baby, of course. But it was a step forward, Gwen thought, that she was completely secure and unafraid in her desire to have this child, and so, she could tell, was Arthur. They had come together again; they were learning how to be husband and wife all over again, trusting enough in the security of the future to risk their hearts unafraid, and they could learn to be parents anew together.

Together, they turned, king and queen, mother and father, husband and wife, and watched the last of the light slip from the land.

 _Together._

* * *

A/N: A good bit of inspiration for this chapter goes to wryter501's review on "The Future of a King," which pointed out that the transition between Gwen who had been queen for years and Arthur who had just returned could have been a bit tricky without Saxons to fight. I wanted to explore what that looked like a bit more, hence the middle section of this chapter.

Also, the last scene has parallels to the last scene of "You Can Never Go Home." (Very deliberate parallels.) And the chapter title is a quote from Amy Pond in Doctor Who.

So I'm currently making a mental map of what all perspectives I want to include in this. They'll definitely include Leon, Elyan, Gilli, and probably more Amhar and Arthur, and Freya is going to get a short story of her own. But if there's anything in particular that you'd like to see me write in this universe, let me know in a comment or PM, and I'll try to write something for it (my imagination is fertile at the moment). Thank you all again for reading and commenting!


	8. Chapter 8: Gilli

**Chapter 8: Truth Makes Free (Gilli)**

When the news came that the Queen of Camelot was lifting the ban on magic, Gilli was living near the druids, working as a healer.

He'd never been able to get Merlin's words out of his head. _Magic is not meant for fighting. It's not meant to bring you glory._ Gilli didn't agree with everything Merlin had decided to do, even now, but he had the idea that Merlin could probably use his magic to bring himself personal glory, and never had. And a man with that kind of strength was a man worth listening to. Gilli had never used his magic offensively in a fight again.

Also, he wanted to be able to heal himself without alerting everyone in the vicinity he was doing it, and without making himself scream in pain. Hence figuring out how to be a healer.

He'd actually discovered he had a talent for it, and Iseldir's druids didn't mind him practicing on them. Gilli would never become a druid himself – they were far too mystical for that – but they were brave enough to not bother hiding their magical heritage, and he would always respect them for that. Besides, Iseldir took in anyone who needed a home, and Gilli admired him for that, was grateful it extended to him and gave him a safe space to do magic.

Anyway, he was there the messenger came from the palace. He wasn't wearing a red cloak or armor, but everyone in the camp was suddenly on edge the moment he got close anyway.

Gilli was in the midst of the camp, caring for a boy who'd broken his arm falling out of a tree earlier in the day, and didn't know exactly what was going on, but he did notice everyone going stiff as a board around him. He'd asked to be left out of their mind-speak communications, because he wasn't a druid and he preferred to have his mind to himself, thank you very much, but obviously everyone else had just gotten an important one.

"What's going on?" he asked of no one in particular.

"There's a rider coming," the boy's mother answered shortly. "Not dressed as a knight, but who knows."

She reached out to wrap her arms tightly around her son, and despite the fact that he wasn't linked to her, Gilli got the image in his mind of a sword held to the throat of a blond druid boy and utter, helpless terror.

He scrambled to his feet and stalked to the front of the camp. He might have decided not to fight with magic, but he had a sword and if he didn't give his last breath for his kin, he might as well never have been born.

Gilli reached the cave entrance in time to realize that Iseldir was standing in it, apparently utterly unafraid. He had no time to question, however, before the aforeseen rider came crashing through the trees and dismounted in front of them.

"Welcome," Iseldir said steadily before anything could happen. "What is your purpose here?"

"I mean you no harm," the rider said quickly. "I simply came to tell you that the Queen of Camelot has legalized magic."

Gilli's thoughts froze.

In the background, he could dimly hear the messenger babbling on about how the queen was sending riders to all the druid camps as he pulled an official-looking scroll out of his saddlebags and handed it to Iseldir.

"Is it true?" one of the other elders gasped, coming into the entrance.

"There is nothing reeking of treachery about this," Iseldir answered, reading the scroll. Gilli wasn't sure if he meant the scroll or the whole situation and doubted the vagueness was an accident.

"I beg your pardon, but you are some of the last to know," the messenger admitted. "What with your being so near Essetir and all. But Merlin – he said to call him Emrys to you – insisted that all the druids must know."

There was a great murmuring about Emrys among the druids, who were all gathering round with hope dawning deep in their tired eyes. "If Emrys has said this at last, perhaps it is true," the elder whispered.

But Gilli's mind had latched onto a completely different name in that comment. He spun to Iseldir.

"Surely you can spare me for a few days?" he asked. "Contact me if I am really needed." He inclined his head to indicate the mind-speak that he dared not reference in front of the rider.

"Of course," Iseldir answered. "Might I ask where you go?"

"To Camelot," Gilli called over his shoulder, as he turned to get one of the horses. "I'll bring back a report of whether this is true," he added, though that wasn't what had been on his mind at all when he decided to go to Camelot.

No, it was the mention that Merlin was still there. Merlin who was the first outside of his own family who had dared reveal his magic to Gilli. Merlin who had said they were kin and meant it. Merlin who had said their paths might cross again.

Gilli was determined to _make_ them cross.

And if Camelot was still unsafe for magic – well, he had no identifying tattoo. He'd gotten in and out of Camelot once; he could do it again.

* * *

When Gilli reached Camelot, it was different from how he remembered it before. A bit bigger, but less crowded, without anyone there for the tournament. But there were a suspicious number of people who looked like druids in the streets.

Well, at least they weren't being rounded up and flung in the dungeons.

Gilli wore his ring into Camelot instead of hiding it in his bag and dared anyone to say a word about it.

The innkeeper gave him a room of his own with no fuss this time, which Gilli was probably more grateful for than the situation warranted. When he'd taken care of his horse and pocketed the key to his room, he stepped out onto the street and stared up at the gleaming white palace walls.

There was one small problem with his plan: Gilli had no idea how to contact Merlin.

Last time he'd been here, Merlin had had some association with the Court Physician, or at least they'd always watched the tournament together. And Gilli had picked up enough to guess he was the Prince's servant.

He certainly wouldn't be the Prince's servant any longer. Not with the King dead.

Well, all Gilli could do was wander up into the courtyard and see where things went from there. Not the worst plan he'd ever had.

The castle gates were open, and Gilli ducked into the courtyard unchallenged; the guards on the walls noticed him, but clearly thought he had some business inside. Gilli folded and refolded his hands around themselves as he ducked through the gate; there were knights and servants crossing the courtyard, but Gilli felt very out of place. It was impossible to forget that if anyone other than Merlin had found out about his magic last time, he would have lost his life here.

It was impossible to forget that he still might, on this trip.

Before he could get uncomfortable enough to go back to the inn and try hitting Merlin's mind with a random probe of mind-speak or something, however, Merlin himself suddenly came out of a set of doors, walking down steps toward the courtyard with a man in druid's robes.

Gilli knew Merlin instantly; the black hair and keen blue eyes hadn't changed in the years between, and he had to keep himself from shouting across the courtyard to him. He settled for walking across it quickly as Merlin escorted the druid to his horse.

"Yes, I will make sure to speak to the Queen about reparations," he said, as the druid grasped the horse's reins.

"I am sure you will, Emrys," the druid returned, and Gilli was too busy with other things to try parsing the dry sarcasm in the druid's tone.

Then the horse's hoofs went clattering away across the courtyard, and Merlin stood a moment alone. Gilli took an instant to observe him, remembering their last meeting and Merlin's offer of kinship.

Merlin now looked old. He had always been older than Gilli, but just now he looked old as if the weight of far more years than he had lived hung on his shoulders. He was dressed more richly than he had been before, in an embroidered blue jacket over a white shirt, but he still wore a blue neckerchief. Above all, though, he looked tired, tired as though every day was a chore to get through, and he rubbed his hands briefly over his face and through his too-long hair before he turned back to the stairs.

Gilli understood that kind of tired. He'd lived it.

"Merlin," he said, quietly.

Merlin spun around, forcing a smile to his face that suddenly seemed to become more real when he saw Gilli.

"Gilli!" he exclaimed. "Is that really you?"

"It's me," Gilli said, beaming. He stepped forward to meet Merlin's outstretched hand with his own, and then because Merlin looked like he could use it, he pulled him into a quick hug.

"How have you been, old friend?" Merlin asked eagerly as they drew back.

"I've become a healer," Gilli told him, and didn't resent the relief he saw cross Merlin's face quickly. "And you?"

"It's – it's been a long road," Merlin answered, quietly and more honest than Gilli had quite expected. "But if you've come to find out if magic is legal now – it is."

Gilli realized in that moment that he hadn't believed it until just then, standing in Camelot's courtyard, with Merlin telling him. Relief, mixed with so many other emotions he couldn't name them, swept over him, and for a moment his knees felt weak.

But focusing on Merlin's tone was easier than focusing on his emotions, and there was something very odd about it. _We will be free._ He'd never forgotten Merlin's words at the end of his last visit or the incredible hope and faith they were said with. Yet now Merlin announced that magic was free with more weariness in his voice than joy.

"We're free, then," he said with tentative hope.

"We're free," Merlin agreed, and with that a glimmer of the relief Gilli had expected came through.

A moment later, he shook his head and became more animated. "Where are you staying?" he asked.

"I have a place at the inn," Gilli told him.

"You could stay with me," Merlin offered. "I have enough room now. If you wanted, that is," he added quickly.

If there was one word Merlin had used to describe himself before that had stuck in Gilli's head all these years, it would be _lonely_. Apparently that hadn't changed in the years in between, and Gilli felt a moment of irrational anger at everyone who had overlooked his kin.

"Of course I'll stay with you," he said firmly.

* * *

"Is it really true that we're free?" Gilli asked Merlin that night, up in his chambers in one of the turrets.

Merlin shot him a sharp glance. "Of course we are," he said. "I wouldn't lie – about that," he added quickly. "Why do you ask?"

"Because there's none of the joy in you I would have expected at that," Gilli answered.

It was blunt, but Gilli had never pretended he wasn't blunt.

Merlin winced and looked away, and for a moment Gilli wished he had learned more tact somewhere.

"It's – it's not everything I imagined it would be," Merlin said quietly to the fire. "Arthur's dead, and it's – it's hard when every druid who comes here wants to complain once he realizes magic is truly free. _The opportune moment was missed – Albion will never be formed_ ," he said, sitting up and clearly imitating the complaints. " _Magic was not returned for years after you came here while our people suffered. The Once and Future King is dead before his time._ And underlying every remark, the question of _what were you doing, Emrys?_ What were you doing while our people suffered? What were you doing failing to form Albion? And what none of them – none of them! – seem to realize, is that while they can sit there and criticize, _I am Emrys_! What was I meant to _do_ with all this destiny? What was I to do when I was a farm boy from Ealdor being told I had to protect a prat and bring back magic and unite a kingdom? Where were any of the druids to tell me what I was meant to do when all I had was an enigmatic dragon with an agenda to guide me through it all? How was I supposed to avoid failing in _**everything I was meant to do?!"**_

By the time he had finished, Merlin had leapt to his feet and was nearly shouting his complaint to the skies.

Gilli squeezed his hands together, not knowing exactly what to say in the face of that torrent of grief and pain.

"I'm sorry," he offered at last, and he truly, really was.

Merlin stood panting a moment, then he dropped boneless back onto his bed.

"I'm sorry, Gilli," he said quietly. "I didn't mean to say all that to you."

 _But you needed to say it_ , Gilli thought. Before he could say that, though, Merlin was adding, "I – this afternoon in the courtyard, I thought you were going to blame me for not bringing magic back fast enough as everyone else does."

He looked up, a shy hope glimmering in his eyes.

"It's fine if you do blame me," he added quickly. "It's my fault, really."

Gilli couldn't stand this any longer.

"Merlin," he interrupted, "when I met you, I didn't know you were Emrys. I didn't know Emrys existed. All I saw in you was a man more powerful than anyone he knew, forced to hide what he was and live his life as a servant, lonely and alone. I didn't want you to be lonely, Merlin. That was all I wanted of you."

There were tears shining too bright in Merlin's eyes; he dropped his eyes from Gilli's to look at the floor.

"I only heard about Emrys later from the druids," Gilli said, and saw how Merlin flinched slightly at the name. "And when I realized it was you, I didn't expect supernatural things from you. You're only a man, Merlin," he added as gently and truthfully as he could. "There's no way you wouldn't make mistakes."

"Only a man," Merlin mocked. He had rested his forehead on his hand, and it shadowed his face. "I'm a warlock, born with magic, the most powerful sorcerer to live, a dragonlord, Emrys, destined to be one side of a coin with the Once and Future King, destined to bring magic back and form Albion and protect Arthur, with my conscience or against it. I can't _afford_ to make mistakes. And I'm terrified of admitting all that even to you," he added, looking up with a bitter laugh.

Gilli felt his heart twist with how little sympathy Merlin had clearly ever received for anything.

"You had to hide it all so long," he said.

"That I forgot who I was," Merlin returned, with a twist of his lips that made a mockery of a smile.

Clearly he remembered Gilli's comment of long ago. Gilli still thought it was true, but he wished he hadn't said it now.

Blunt was still the only way he knew how to be, though. "That it's no wonder you're afraid to say the truth," he said. "By magic, Merlin, I'm half-afraid to use magic anywhere but in a druid's camp myself, and I swore I'd never be ashamed of who I was. It—it changes you, living in fear."

Merlin ducked his head again. "And it's my fault you learned to live that way," he murmured.

He was clearly waiting for Gilli to agree, to condemn him to the prison of guilt he'd built for himself, and Gilli was suddenly impatient even in his sympathy.

" _No,"_ he said fiercely, so fiercely that Merlin looked up quickly. "Destiny or no destiny, Emrys or no Emrys, you're just one man, trying not to get yourself executed, and it's not fair of the druids to blame everything on you."

The tears in Merlin's eyes spilled suddenly over his lashes and ran down his cheeks. "Sorry," he muttered, ducking his head to rub at his cheeks. "I'm sorry."

But for a moment when Gilli had absolved him, there had been hope in his eyes. Clearly even he hadn't known how much he needed someone, perhaps even someone with magic, to say that to him.

"Don't apologize," Gilli told him. "We're kin. It's alright between kin."

He hated seeing anyone in any kind of pain, had hated it ever since he learned to hate his actions in the tournament, ever since he started becoming a healer and trying to take away pain. Merlin was in so much emotional pain that it filled the room, and Gilli hated it.

He moved to sit on the bed beside Merlin and let their shoulders brush. "It's not your fault," he said steadily. "Everything that has gone wrong in the history of the world isn't your fault. I don't blame you one bit for this being the time magic becomes free."

Merlin choked a bit on a sob, bent over with his face buried in his hands. For all he was a healer, Gilli wasn't the best with crying people, but he rested a hand gently on Merlin's back and rubbed it softly up and down.

They stayed like that for a while, until Merlin suddenly sat up and tossed his hair out of his face, rubbing all traces of tears out of his eyes.

"Thanks, Gilli," he said quietly.

Gilli spoke quickly to cut off the apology he was pretty sure was coming. "You needed someone to tell you that," he said. "I'm sorry I'm the first to say it instead of blaming you."

Merlin shrugged, but the weight of tiredness that had been clinging visibly to his shoulders ever since Gilli had seen him had faded, and he sat straighter than before.

"We _are_ free," he said, changing the subject, and this time there was a touch more of the wonder in his voice that there had been years ago. "Any ideas what to do with the freedom?"

"What are you doing?" Gilli asked, getting up and moving back to his chair to be able to see Merlin better.

For the first time Merlin looked really embarrassed. "I'm the Court Sorcerer," he said. "Gwen – the Queen – that was part of her stipulation for freeing magic."

Gilli grinned – both in a friendly way at his friend's discomfort and because he thought that after years of hiding there was no one who should be rewarded more. "That explains the fancier coat, then," he said cheerfully. "And I don't know – I might move to Camelot and work as a healer here."

He hadn't decided up until that moment, but as soon as he said the words, they felt right, somehow.

Merlin looked slightly taken aback. "There's no need for you to move to Camelot," he said, clearly sensing Gilli's underlying desire to stay fairly near him.

"I have no deep ties to anywhere else," Gilli told him, perfectly truthfully. "Besides, if we're reintroducing magic, we have to teach anyone who's not kin that it doesn't corrupt. I don't know any better way than healing to do that."

"You won't get many clients for a while," Merlin warned him, but his smile, though small, seemed real this time.

Gilli laughed. "You think I care about that?" he asked gaily, and felt as if he was finally on the path he had always been meant to take.

* * *

Gilli had had his little healer's hut open in the lower town for a few months before Merlin took him along on the dragon adventure.

His place was the first openly magical shop in Camelot, and of course it was treated with a lot of suspicion. Any clients who came only came because they were stupidly brave or stupidly curious, or both, and there were a lot of hecklers. But Gilli had learned years ago to look those who despised him in the eyes and come out intact. He knew, now, that nothing they could say would ever mean anything to him again. And he wasn't afraid of taking the brunt of the suspicion if he could pave the way for others with magic to feel safe here.

He hadn't seen all that much of Merlin since moving to Camelot, which he wasn't surprised by; the kinship they would have would always be more that of fond cousins than of brothers. But he came back to his little place one afternoon after going out to gather herbs to find Merlin sitting quietly in the shop. He had left it guarded with magic, but he wasn't surprised that Merlin either hadn't noticed or had walked right through it.

"Hey," he said, walking over to a bench to sort his herbs.

"Hey," Merlin echoed. He looked less ghostly than he had the last time Gilli had met him, but barely less haunted.

"Are the druids behaving any better?" Gilli asked.

That startled a short laugh out of Merlin. "A little, perhaps," he said, which Gilli knew meant no, and he was briefly furious with anyone who hurt Merlin further all over again. But Merlin had moved on to the point before he found anything to say; maybe Merlin had learned that Gilli liked blunt honesty.

"There's – there's something I need to do," he said. "And the Queen doesn't want me to do it alone. There's a couple of knights coming, but –" he paused, and swallowed hard. Gilli sorted herbs and gave him room to speak.

"But I want someone with magic along too," Merlin said all in a rush. "You don't have to come, of course –"

Gilli cut off his backpedaling. "Of course I'm coming," he said flatly. There was no way he wouldn't, when Merlin asked. "Where are we going?'

Merlin stood up and came to lean on the workbench by Gilli, wrapping his arms tightly around himself.

"I don't know if I've ever told you," he said in a low, pinched voice that said he'd had too many secrets dragged out of him lately, "but I'm the last dragonlord."

"You mentioned you were a dragonlord once," Gilli said. He paused in sorting his herbs and looked up at Merlin, who was still unfairly taller than him. "You know you don't have to tell me all your secrets for me to trust you, right?" he said, and when Merlin froze, as if no one had said that to him lately, he scoffed and added, "We both have magic, Merlin; keeping secrets is how we _live_."

He deliberately did not say survive, because keeping secrets was almost as much a way of life for them as it was a way not to get burned, and Gilli knew it.

Merlin relaxed, letting his arms loosen and fall to his sides, and Gilli again felt as if he'd said something that Merlin needed to hear.

"This is actually relevant to what I'm asking, I promise," Merlin said, but his voice was far less tense. "There's a dragon I called from her egg a few years ago, but I – I lost track of her since. I heard of a sighting recently, and she's my responsibility, so I'm going to find her."

His voice had become tense again by the end, and Gilli understood why; asking someone to go face a dragon was a rather tall order. But all he said was, "I'm surprised you told the Queen you were doing this."

"I promised the Queen I'd stay in Camelot," Merlin answered quietly. "I don't want to sneak off for days and leave her wondering if I've abandoned her."

"You're the noblest man I've ever met," Gilli said simply, and ignored Merlin's surprised stammering. "When do we leave? And how likely am I to need to heal burns?"

* * *

They left the next morning, Merlin, Gilli, and two knights Merlin had introduced as Sir Leon and Sir Percival.

Gilli guessed the knights' presence was by the Queen's command, because though Merlin seemed to be on decent terms with them, he was also tense around them, especially Sir Leon. Gilli stayed quiet on the edges; he knew better than to draw attention to himself in the presence of knights.

They had traveled two days' journey from Camelot and settled in the forest to sleep for the night. Merlin had taken watch, which the knights evidently trusted him to do, but an hour or so after Gilli had gone to sleep, Merlin shook him awake. In the dim moonlight, his face was stern and drawn.

"Where are we going?" Gilli asked, when they had made their way away from the camp.

"To meet Aithusa," Merlin answered. "I promised Gwen I'd have someone with me when I met her."

And he didn't want that person to be one of the knights, Gilli translated. That was perfectly understandable, given everything.

Not that Gilli wasn't a bit worried about meeting a dragon, but he at least had his ring on his finger. He had more of a chance of dispelling dragonfire than they did.

Merlin led him quickly and quietly to a clearing in the woods. As far as Gilli could see, there was no sign of a dragon there. But Merlin cleared his throat, clenched his hands, stepped out of the trees, and fairly roared something at the sky.

Moments later a white dragon appeared, clearing the trees to thump down in the clearing. It was smaller than Gilli had expected, and more pathetic – it seemed to be scarred, and though it landed in the clearing, it backed away from Merlin as far as it could go, its light eyes nearly staring out of its head.

"Aithusa," Merlin said very gently. He was speaking English now. "You don't have to be afraid of me. I'm sorry."

The dragon made a terrible, pitiful sound, as though it was gargling rocks in its throat; then it lowered its head and shook it violently.

"You still can't speak, can you?" Merlin asked, and his voice was heavy with grief. "It's okay. Just speak in my mind."

The dragon lifted its head to stare at Merlin, and fierce defiance suddenly flamed in its eyes. To his surprise, Gilli could hear the echo of its voice in his mind, like a thin voice lost in the wind and fog, though he could tell if he were to hear it clearly it would be a commanding voice indeed.

 _What right do you have to command me, dragonlord? You told me it was safe to come from my egg, and it was anything but safe. You slew my lady, the only one who cared about me. You have sent me away whenever I come near you. You care nothing for me._

"That's not true," Merlin said quickly. "Aithusa –" he began, faltered, and hesitated before trying again.

"I don't know what I can say," he admitted heavily. "I have failed you. I thought you would be safe with Kilgarrah. I never dreamed you would ally with Morgana. Trust me, I did not want to be your enemy."

 _Morgana was dying alone,_ the dragon shot back. _No one should die alone. And we were tortured together. You never even reached out to me in mind. Who should I be loyal to?_

"I'm sorry," Merlin said again, helplessly. But his own eyes flared in anger, and he suddenly burst out, "You were born the Light of the Sun. You were meant to be a symbol of hope for me and Arthur and Albion. And then you forge the sword that kills the King! How could you betray all you were meant to be like that?"

 _You struggle to bear your own destiny,_ the dragon retorted, _and you would reproach me for failing mine? When I had less direction in how to follow it than you did?_

Merlin flinched at the word _destiny_. His flare of anger had passed; he bowed his head, looking utterly defeated.

"I am sorry, Aithusa," he said again. "I have failed you – more than I even know, I expect. I had no one to teach me how to be a dragonlord, but that is no excuse. Just now I – I merely wanted to see you again and to try to understand."

The dragon straightened and watched him for a very long moment through narrowed eyes; then it seemed to relax.

 _If I failed to live up to the responsibilities placed on me, I do not know if I can hold you responsible for failing too,_ it said. Slowly, very slowly, one claw at a time, it crept across the clearing. Merlin didn't move, scarcely seemed to breathe, and neither did Gilli. But the dragon kept coming, and at last it reached out its long neck and pressed its head against Merlin's hand. Very, very tentatively he turned his hand and scratched lightly over its head.

The dragon let out a long exhale – thankfully free from flames – and curled up by Merlin's side, letting his hand rest on its head for a long moment.

 _I am lonely,_ it said distantly and simply, _and I have never stopped wanting my dragonlord to care. Perhaps, someday, we could be kin as we were meant to be._

There was so much longing in the little dragon's words that it nearly overwhelmed Gilli's mind.

"Perhaps," Merlin said, his voice thick with tears, and then he added, as if the words cost him something to say, "I will be at Camelot. You can come to me there, if you wish. I do care," he added passionately, "and I promise, I _vow_ on my magic that I do everything in my power to be the dragonlord I was meant to be in the future."

The dragon spent another minute or two under his hand; then it withdrew and bowed its head to him in a stately way. If it said anything more, Gilli couldn't hear it. Then it snapped out its wings and was gone over the treetops.

Merlin moved back to the treeline near Gilli; for a moment he rested his hand against a tree and didn't speak.

Gilli knew that the conversation between Merlin and the dragon had been filled with references to people and events that he was clueless about, and he didn't intend to interrogate Merlin. The most important thing, he thought, was that both of them had been radiating an overwhelming sense of not only anger and resentment, but also loss and longing, a yearning to be the kin they were meant to be. Whatever the obstacles in the way – and they appeared to be large – Gilli thought there was a good chance that someday Merlin and the white dragon would truly be friends.

He reached out to squeeze Merlin's shoulder; Merlin jumped, as though for a moment he had forgotten he was there, then looked up with a wan smile. Before he could say anything self-deprecating, Gilli said with confidence, "She will come to Camelot someday."

"You can't know that," Merlin said, but something lightened in his eyes all the same.

"Oh, I think I can," Gilli told him.

"So you're a seer now?" Merlin asked, but he seemed relieved to be teased instead of quizzed about the conversation.

"Maybe we all have a touch of seer in us," Gilli offered, and when Merlin made a disbelieving sound, he protested, "You were the one who predicted our paths would cross again!"

He left his hand on Merlin's shoulder until they got into trees too thick to walk comfortably side-by-side.

* * *

The knights were unsurprisingly a bit startled when Merlin informed them the next morning that he had done what he had come to do and was ready to return to Camelot.

"But you promised the Queen you wouldn't speak to the dragon alone!" Sir Leon protested, sounding on the verge of angry.

"I didn't break my promise," Merlin answered, slinging his saddle over the back of his horse. "I wasn't alone."

He shot a look at Gilli, and Sir Leon followed the look. Gilli forced himself to meet the knight's eyes steadily, and thought he saw relief form in them as Leon absorbed what Merlin had said.

"Right," Sir Leon said. "Toward Camelot it is, then."

* * *

Of all the things Gilli had expected to come out of that trip to meet a dragon, the solution to the ostracism of his healing shop certainly wasn't one of them.

A few weeks after they had returned from their little dragon adventure, Gilli was puttering around the shop without much to do one afternoon when there was suddenly a commotion in the street. Someone was shouting, "Open the doors!" and a moment later the doors to his little shop flew open so hard they banged into the walls and a flood of red-cloaked knights poured through.

For a moment old fears rose up and choked Gilli completely. _The Queen has revoked her stance on magic – the knights have come to arrest me – I'm going to be flung in the dungeons – I'll be burned or beheaded in the morning – can Merlin save me, or is he in the dungeons too?_

The next moment he realized that several of the knights were carrying a fallen knight on a litter, which they were laying down on his healing table, and he hurried forward. One of the knights met his eyes with a desperate look. "You're the healer, aren't you?" he demanded, and at Gilli's dumb nod, he added, "Well, hurry up and heal our comrade!"

Gilli stepped to the side of the stretcher – and swallowed hard. The knight's chain mail had somehow been broken, and there was a deep gash through his stomach. The other knights were holding it closed, but it was an ugly wound.

Gilli recovered his voice. "I thought you knights only allowed the Court Physician to treat you," he said.

"Normally, yes," the knight who had spoken said, "but Percival insisted we bring him to you. Now can you do anything for him? We don't have much of a window to take him to Gaius if you can do nothing."

Gilli had barely been listening after the name Percival; stunned, he looked up and saw that the wounded knight was indeed Percival, the quiet knight who had gone on the dragon journey with them. Gilli had had the impression that Sir Percival had spent that whole trip watching _him_ , even if he said very little.

His mind whirred and went blank. Why had Percival, of all people, whom Merlin hadn't wanted to see the dragon, insisted on coming here? Was the knight so protective of Merlin, who had seemed fairly at ease with him, that he'd risk his life to test out what type of a man Gilli really was? Was he trying to show up the limitations of magical healing by giving Gilli an impossible task? Was this some sort of twisted test?

Whatever else he was, Percival was apparently a perceptive man, for he met Gilli's eyes suddenly, his own too bright with pain. "It's not a test," he whispered out, between gasping breaths.

And that decided it. If Percival wasn't intentionally trying to mock him with this, if he was actually trusting him, Gilli had to do something now. Besides that, Percival was clearly in pain, and Gilli hated pain.

"Stand back," he said shortly to the knights. It had been a long time since his magic had burned the walls around him, but he'd rarely done any healing on the abdomen, and though he trusted his magic absolutely to solve the problem, he wasn't quite sure what the effects would be.

The knights obligingly stepped back, and Gilli glanced at his ring and stepped forward. Normally he'd have given Percival some laudanum first, but the other knight was right; this was an emergency.

He set his hands on the bleeding wound, looked at his ring, and _concentrated_.

There was a flash under his hands, and Percival drew in a tight gasp, but when Gilli lifted his hands, the gash was nothing more than a thin pink line.

There were gasps all around, whispers of wonder and disbelief. Gilli didn't listen to them. He turned and quickly mixed laudanum with willow bark and honey to cut the bitterness, which he gave Percival.

"Drink that before you try standing up," he ordered. Then he smeared some honey mixed with sage and goldenseal onto clean cloths and bound the site of the wound. It never hurt to be doubly sure, and binding wounds after he had healed them seemed to help convince people he had actually done something.

"There you go, sir," he said at last, stepping back.

Percival put the cup down and swung to his feet with no difficulty, leading to more whispering. Standing, he towered over Gilli, but he looked down to meet Gilli's eyes and gave him a surprisingly sweet, youthful smile.

"Thank you, healer," he said, and his voice was completely sincere.

When they had gone, Gilli's knees finally did what they had been wanting to do for the last fifteen minutes and gave out. He sat down hard and ran shaking hands over his face.

"A knight," he muttered under his breath. "By magic, will the wonders never cease."

But from that day forward, the ice had been broken. Gilli had officially healed a knight with a wound that was often fatal, and many people had seen it. More than the over-bold started coming to him in the next weeks, and suddenly it wasn't uncommon to have knights pouring through the door of his shop at any hour of the day or night with impossible wounds to be healed. It took Gilli a couple of months to stop thinking he was going to be thrown into the dungeons every time they barged in.

But it was a step forward, and not a small one, to letting people understand magic, and for that Gilli would have put up with anything.

Percival, in a quiet way, somehow became a friend. He brought all his hurts to Gilli to heal, it seemed, no matter how small, and though he never said much, the silent proof of his trust meant a lot to Gilli. There would have been a time when the approval of a fighter like Percival would have meant the world to him, and even now it meant something.

He tried to express some of this to Percival once, when the man was in his shop on the excuse of bruised knuckles, and Percival gave him that wide, delighted smile.

"I'll always have the back of magic like yours," he said.

Gilli had never thought he'd be warm all over at the approval of a Camelot knight, but times were clearly changing, because somehow he was.

* * *

A quarter of a year had passed after the trip to meet Aithusa when Gilli heard shouting one morning. He left behind the herbs he was sorting and went to the door to find out what was going on.

"Dragon!" was the cry on his neighbor's tongues. And "Dragon!" was spreading throughout the lower town. Everyone was on edge, and no one seemed to know what to do.

Gilli looked up, and saw a pair of white wings overhead, aiming deliberately for the palace. He grinned suddenly.

"Don't worry," he said firmly. "She's just coming to meet the Court Sorcerer."

He had said it loudly enough for many people to hear, and those around him relaxed a bit. "He is a sorcerer too," one man mumbled, and when the dragon headed straight for the castle and no fires started, people began returning to their business.

To think that people were _trusting_ him now because, like the Court Sorcerer, he had magic. Gilli had never dreamed he would see the day.

He was beaming as he went back to his work, and only a part of that was because he was very glad that Aithusa had finally come to see Merlin.

* * *

"Your arm's all good," Gilli told his small patient, smiling.

The boy jumped off the stool he was sitting on, swinging the formerly broken arm easily. "Thanks!" he exclaimed, skipping out the door.

Gilli followed him to look out into the street. He had a fairly regular stream of people coming to him for healing now, and he wasn't the only person besides Merlin to openly practice magic in Camelot; a family had moved here last month and sold bunches of flowers with small, harmless, but beautiful enchantments on them in the town square.

He realized that there was a wave of murmurs running through the street, and looked up to see Merlin coming toward him with Aithusa walking at his heels.

She had shown up in the sky often enough that no one panicked at her appearance anymore, but there was still a tension to seeing her in the street. Gilli, though, was busy noticing that she had definitely grown from when he had first seen her; she had lost her half-starved appearance, her eyes no longer seemed too large for her face, and she walked by Merlin as though she trusted him, instead of cringing away.

Gilli was glad; he didn't like seeing even a dragon in pain.

Merlin looked up and caught his eyes. "Gilli!" he exclaimed cheerfully. "Do you have a moment?"

"For you? Of course," Gilli answered, glad to see Merlin, too, in good spirits, and stepped back to let man and dragon into his shop.

"What brings you two down here?" he asked.

Merlin shut the door and suddenly became very serious.

"Aithusa bears the traces of old wounds," he said. "We wondered if there was anything you might be able to do about them."

For a moment, all Gilli could think was that when he'd first decided to learn to heal and not fight after leaving Camelot the first time, he'd never dreamed he'd be using his healing for a dragon.

But first time for everything, right? "I can see if I can do something, at least," he said.

With a quick, slightly uncoordinated flap of her wings, Aithusa hopped up to sit on the table he got patients to lie down on. She was large enough that she covered it completely.

Gilli used a quick bit of magic to make it a bit larger to accommodate her and shave the legs a bit shorter so she was at a comfortable height to work at. That was magic he had learned long ago to make his job easier, and he thought nothing of it now, but Merlin said approvingly, "Nice work."

"Thanks," Gilli said, grinning in spite of himself, and summoning his magic through the ring, he began looking for old wounds he could heal on the white dragon.

There were more than he would have expected, old scars with remnants of tissue twisted back together unnaturally underneath, and Gilli felt a wave of overwhelming rage at whoever had dared torture a little dragon so. He had to let go of his magic for a moment and breathe to make himself calm down before he let the magic do something he regretted.

There was something productive he could do to counteract the evil done in the past in front of him now, and since his days fighting Uther Gilli had learned how not to give into revenge. The idea was still incredibly appealing, however, as he gathered his magic again and began trying to undo the twisted healing of the wounds and to help them join properly.

It took him a while, and very little was said in the room as he worked, except for Merlin occasionally telling him that Aithusa wanted him to look at a certain place. There were some places that Gilli couldn't heal any more properly than they were already healed – "I don't know if she'll ever be able to talk properly," he said regretfully after looking at her neck – but more than not he could do something for. There were several gashes in her wings that he was very proud of being able to reheal along much neater lines.

"I think that's all I can do," he said at last, standing up.

"Thank you so much," Merlin told him, eyes shining with sincerity. "Aithusa thanks you too."

"Of course," Gilli said, smiling.

The dragon bent her head to him; then she hopped off the table. Gilli reset it to its usual proportions as Aithusa and Merlin seemed to have a conversation in the doorway; Merlin was speaking too low for Gilli to hear easily, and he didn't try eavesdropping.

When Merlin said, louder and cheerful, "I'll see you next week, then?" and Aithusa bobbed her head in answer, Gilli came to the door to stand by Merlin to watch her fly away. Few people even bothered looking up as she soared over the rooftops.

"She's flying more evenly than she was before," Gilli commented, noticing that she seemed less wobbly in the air and feeling very proud of what he'd been able to do for her wings.

"Thanks to you," Merlin told him.

Gilli simply smiled.

"I couldn't hear her in my mind this time," he commented.

Merlin gave him a sharp glance. "You could before?" he asked.

"The first time I saw her," Gilli admitted.

Merlin nodded, looking rather pained. "Dragons usually communicate only with dragonlords," he said. "I think Aithusa was so lonely that she was casting her mind-speak out to anyone who had a chance of hearing it, at that point."

"Good thing you sought her out, then," Gilli said, and turned into his shop to set it in order before Merlin could protest; he had gotten some herbs out to help the boy who'd come before Aithusa and hadn't had a chance to sort them back into their boxes yet. He was pleased when Merlin followed him in and came to lean against the bench by him.

"You have quite a collection of herbs there," he commented, glancing over Gilli's meticulous organization. "I used to gather them from the woods for Gaius."

Gilli had almost forgotten that his friend had been apprenticed under a physician at one point. "Would you mind going with me the next time I go?" he asked. "You must have a better idea than I do about where to find the herbs around here."

He wondered after he'd said it if he'd overstepped, but Merlin's smile was suddenly brighter and more real than Gilli could remember seeing it in a very long time.

"I'd love to come," he said. "It's been too long since I've done something as simple as herb-picking. The Court Sorcerer doesn't have much time for healing, unfortunately."

"And that's why I'm here to pick up the slack," Gilli teased him lightly.

The front door suddenly flew open, and Gilli spun quickly to face whoever had flung it nearly into the wall, noting Merlin doing the same in his periphery.

It was one of the knights, Sir Lionel, who seemed to be visiting Gilli about once a week for some trouble or another. This time he had his hand clapped over a bleeding cut on one arm.

"Someday I swear I will teach you knights some respect for my front door," Gilli reprimanded him mildly, grabbing a glass of the willow bark and honey he had learned to keep on hand and coming around the counter.

Lionel had the grace to look sheepish. "I beg your pardon," he said.

Gilli gave it with a nod and handed him the cup. "Drink that. What did you do this time?"

"Training accident, I'm afraid," the knight admitted, letting go of his wound to take the cup.

Gilli took the wounded arm in his hand as Lionel drained the drink. This was a simple, shallow cut, looking worse than it was. He healed it with a quick flash of his eyes and ring.

"Thanks, healer!" Lionel said cheerfully, setting down the cup. "Oh – my lord," he added suddenly, sounding surprised. "I'm sorry, I didn't see you there!"

Gilli followed the direction of his eyes and noticed Merlin, just moving out of the shadows by one wall of his shop. If he'd been standing a foot back, even Gilli would have had a hard time seeing him.

"No need to apologize, sir knight," Merlin said easily, coming forward to sit on a stool as Gilli got water and cloths and washed off Lionel's cut.

In a couple moments, he was done, and Lionel sprang up. "Many thanks again!" he called cheerfully. "Good day, my lord," he added, with a slight bow to Merlin, and was gone, banging Gilli's door as he went out.

"So that's why the number of knights coming to Gaius has been going down," Merlin remarked, relaxing on the stool. "They're all taking their cuts to you for an instant fix now."

"You must have known that before," Gilli said, going to dump out the slightly bloodied water. "I've been dealing with most of the severe wounds for several months, I think. Ever since Percival came here."

"I knew that," Merlin replied, smiling a bit. "I didn't know you dealt in all the little things."

"For now I do," Gilli answered. He put down the bowl and turned to look Merlin in the eyes. "Lionel startled you, crashing in like that, didn't he?"

Merlin's shoulders hunched and he looked away. "I know him," he said, deflecting. "He's a good man."

"For the first two months, every time the knights came in, I thought I was about to be carted off to the dungeons to be burned for using my magic," Gilli said simply. "It's not so easy, is it, letting go of that fear."

Merlin's smile was a small and twisted thing when he looked up. "There were so many years when men in red cloaks storming into Gaius's chambers was a signal that Uther had decided to go on another purge of magic," he said quietly.

Gilli drew in his breath. "It would have been even worse for you, living right under Uther's thumb all those years," he said quietly. "It's not easy to forget."

"I wish it was," Merlin said, a touch bitterly, and Gilli had the sense he was thinking about forgetting much more than that. He doubted it would do any good to ask, however.

He turned back to his work and worked in silence for a few minutes; then Merlin sighed and stood up.

"I should get back to the castle," he said. "Gwen will want to consult about the open court tomorrow."

He still had shadows in his eyes. Gilli thought quickly.

"Merlin!" he called, making the warlock stop by the door. "I'm going to go pick herbs tomorrow morning. You want to come?"

Merlin's answering smile chased the shadows away from his eyes. "I'll meet you at the gate at dawn," he said, and then he was gone.

* * *

The years came and the years went, and they brought changes. More and more people started making a living by their magic in Camelot; Camelot actually became a refuge for those with magic when other countries were a bit slower about repealing the ban. Gilli and Merlin got herbs and occasionally did crazy magical things together, and Gilli took one flight and one flight only on Aithusa after Merlin dared him to do it. Gilli wound up getting so much business, even though he wasn't the only healer in Camelot, that he had to limit his healing to the more serious wounds. For whatever reason, however, he kept his doors open to the knights any hour of the day or night, no matter how slight their problem. He had somehow grown fond of the men in red cloaks over the years.

* * *

"You lost her to Uther before too?" Gilli asked incredulously after Freya came back. "And you still defended him against me? By magic, man, how did you do it?"

Merlin's eyes were shadowed in a way they rarely were nowadays. "I had a destiny," he said quietly.

Gilli watched him closely for a moment. "You don't resent it anymore, do you?" he asked, knowing Merlin would hate the question but knowing he had to ask regardless. He'd never said less than the truth to Merlin. "You don't follow the Pendragons just because of a destiny?"

Merlin turned back to him quickly, his eyes lightening and becoming clear. "Of course not," he said. "I follow the Pendragons out of friendship and loyalty."

And Gilli knew what Merlin sounded like lying. Out of everything that had stayed with him from his first visit to Camelot, the thing that had haunted him the most was Merlin's pleas that he hadn't forgotten who he was, as if he knew Gilli was right in the accusation and he couldn't face it all the same. He had wished, fiercely, afterwards that something would happen to let Merlin live free, because no one deserved to lose themselves bit by bit to a mask, a role they were forced to play to survive.

Merlin wasn't lying now, and Gilli felt a deep measure of peace. He changed the subject.

* * *

To all the bonds of kinship between Merlin and Gilli, there was eventually added the tie of being two of the few who were left that could remember the terror of magic being a death penalty.

Despite the tendency of those who had magic to be long-lived, rediscovered now that the lives of those with magic weren't being cut short routinely, Merlin and Freya and Gilli outlived most of the others who had known the days when using a bit of magic was a terrible risk. (It was a fact, known and usually not talked about, that the King and Queen of Camelot shared in this extended lifespan.)

They almost never talked about the remembrance of those days, Merlin and Gilli. But it was there, a silent, unspoken bond between them.

They were riding back to Camelot together one afternoon, after riding out to gather herbs. Gilli still used them occasionally in healing, and Merlin still liked riding out with him when he got the chance.

"She's come a long way," Merlin said, halting his horse and looking down at Camelot. The city was sprawled out below them, bigger and cleaner than the first time Gilli had seen it, and in the gathering dusk there were flashes of magic here and there as people used minor whirlwinds to clear up, lit their shops with magical lights, and in one square started a controlled magical bonfire for a dance.

It was a very different Camelot from the one they had both known a very long time ago.

"She's improved a lot," Gilli said quietly. "Largely thanks to you, Court Sorcerer."

Merlin laughed lightly at Gilli's words. "Me and a lot of others," he said cheerfully. "Race you back to Camelot?"

"You think our old bones can handle that?" Gilli protested, but he was grinning.

"You can heal them in an instant if they don't!" Merlin shouted over his shoulder as he started his horse to a gallop.

"Cheater!" Gilli shouted after him as he urged his own horse forward.

The things one did for kin.

* * *

A/N: Note, I'm not trying to bash the druids here. They had pretty legitimate reasons for thinking Emrys was going to bring magic back. Also not nearly all druids blamed Merlin, but even one would have been enough for him to feel guilty. And on top of Arthur's death, being blamed for being unable to fulfill that bit of destiny was a bit Not Good for Merlin, also understandably.

For how fascinating of a character Gilli is in the show, he doesn't show up in fanfic much. So here this chapter is to rectify that. :) And the chapter title is based off a chapter title in _Anne's House of Dreams_ , which is based off John 8:32.


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